


Maximus Redemption

by Blue_Hood



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Inhumans (Comics), Inhumans (TV 2017), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Afterlife Colony (Marvel), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aunts & Uncles, Brothers, Captivity, Childhood, Childhood Trauma, Cousins, Escape, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, First Meetings, Human Experimentation, Hybrids, Inhumans (Marvel), Kid Fic, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Mad Scientists, Mind Control, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Post-Betrayal, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Princes & Princesses, Psychological Trauma, Reality Bending, Recovery, Redemption, Reunions, Royalty, Scars, Science, Single Parents, Superpowers, Terrigen Crystals (Marvel), Terrigenesis (Marvel), Threats, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:21:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27096463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Hood/pseuds/Blue_Hood
Summary: Almost a decade after he escaped Attilan following his failed coup, Maximus returns but he's not the same man, not by a long shot. For starters, he's a father.Working Title was Max Bolt Jr but Maximus kinda hijacked the story
Relationships: Ahura Boltagon & Maximus Boltagon, Maximus Boltagon/Ariela (OC), Medusalith Amaquelin/Blackagar Boltagon
Kudos: 2





	1. Escape

**Author's Note:**

> Warning, this story gets into some serious topics, namely PTSD and trauma recovery. Let me know if I got anything wrong, be it factual or a typo. Reviews are appreciated.  
> Also I’m going to try to refrain from saying Medusa translated Black Bolt’s signs as much as possible.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maximus returns to Attilan

Maximus always kept his son close to him, ever since the boy’s mother died during childbirth. When his Inhuman status was discovered, Maximus made a deal to save his son. He agreed to work for the people who were hunting down Inhuman potentials hidden among the human populace in exchange for a private lab where he could work and sleep with his son. The lab had two bunks against one wall and two guards outside, it was the only home his son could remember. At night when their overlords turned out the lights, Maximus laid down with his son and whispered stories of Attilan, of the Royal family, stories of his beloved and her family. He whispered stories until they both fell asleep, curled up together. During the day, Ahura Boltagon (alias Maxwell Bolton Jr.) learned at his father’s side.

There were rules tied to this existence, rules that Maximus would never otherwise enforce. From early on, Ahura was taught that his real name was a secret, he was taught to trust those who knew his true name above all. He was also taught to refuse food and drinks given to him by anyone except his father. When Maximus used his real name, Ahura obeyed without question. The former prince’s heart broke every time he thought about how much better his son’s life could have been if he was able to grow up in Attilan, like a normal Inhuman.

One day, Maximus was summoned and as always, he helped Ahura get his backpack on- one of the few things the boy could consider his- before walking with his son pressed to his side. The summons was a trap, his masters were tired of waiting to get the boy. The pair were quickly overwhelmed and, fearing for his son, Maximus unleashed the full might of his power on their attackers then he ran. Unlike any other Inhuman that was brought in, Maximus had been conscious for the whole trip. He knew where the hangar was, he knew how to steal a plane. He would have done so long ago had he not believed that his compliance would keep his son safe. Scrambling, he managed to disable the GPS tracker on the smallest jet before taking off. A terrified Ahura sat beside him in the cockpit. Once his panicking subsided, he heard his son say “Daddy?”

“Ahura, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Whatever you do, do not set your bag down, even for a minute. We’re going to Attilan and there are things inside that your uncle needs to see. Do you understand?” The boy nodded, eyes shining with unshed tears. “Good. Remember the secret passages I told you about?” Another nod, he was trying to stay strong. “Good, good boy. If something happens and I tell you to run, do not stop for anything until you get to Attilan and see your uncle. Understood?”

“Yes, daddy.” The boy was barely holding back tears. Maximus realized he was scaring his son and felt bad for it but he knew all too well that scared and alive was better than happy and dead or worse.

“Good boy. I love you, Ahura.”

“I love you too.”

“And I’m gonna do everything I can to keep both of us safe but you have to listen to your aunt.”

“Okay, daddy.”

“You can cry, it’s okay to cry.” That was all the boy needed to hear and as he flew the plane, Maximus listened to his son’s warbled words, reassuring the boy whenever he could but never making promises he couldn’t keep. Ahura was used to his father’s distant way of caring; in fact, he never knew any other kind of love.

They were less than a mile out from Attilan, long after Ahura had calmed down, when the plane was shot out of the sky. Maximus grabbed his son and tried to cushion him from the crash. Jumping to his feet, he pushed Ahura behind him and grabbed a gun off the rack in the back of the jet, shooting at the first uniform he saw. Ahura climbed back into the remains of the cockpit and took shelter within the twisted metal until Maximus yelled at him to run, clearing a path for his son as best he could. The boy ran, trying to find the hidden entrance to the Inhuman city his father often whispered about. Once the boy was clear, Maximus grabbed a few more guns and made his own run for it, shooting at the fuselages of the airships. The shockwave threw him back, causing him to hit his head, which is how the Royal Guards found him.

Ahura found the secret passageway easy enough and followed it just as his father had in the stories, coming out in the palace and racing to the throne room while dodging guards. He tripped on his way to throne itself, falling hard on his weak side “Ow.” Looking up, he saw the man on the throne sign and quickly copied the gestures his father taught him. “Daddy taught me that.”

The woman beside the throne said “Maximus,” like it was a bad thing.

“Uh-huh.” Ahura couldn’t stand up so he sat down. His backpack was really heavy so he leaned back on it.

The woman asked “What’s in the bag?” and Ahura felt like he missed something.

“Daddy told me not to let anyone have it.”

She got a mean look on her face, like one of the guys that boss daddy around gets when daddy says no, and in a mean voice, just like those guys, she asked “Why did you bring it here?”

“Daddy said not to set it down.” He looked at his back, or tried to, then said “I really hope this doesn’t count. He said, wait a minute-” The man on the throne signed like daddy did and daddy said his brother made up the signs. Ahura asked “Are you my aunt and uncle?”

The man on the throne nodded with a smile and the woman beside him seemed more upset as she said “Yes, we are. I’m Queen Medusa, and this is your father’s brother, King Black Bolt.”

“Why didn’t you just say so? Daddy said to show my uncle what’s inside. Uh, I’m stuck.” His arm was pinned under one of the straps.

His uncle Black Bolt signed and aunt Medusa translated, “What’s your name?”

“Depends,” Ahura thought about it, still trying to pull his arm out, “I guess you’d call me Ahura, daddy said it’s my Inhuman name.” He had only managed to get his arm more stuck when a bunch of big guys dragged his daddy in and pushed him to the ground “Daddy! Little help.”

Working around his chains, Maximus took the strap in one hand and used the other to push his son’s arm out. “Are you hurt, Ahura?”

Slipping the other strap off, his son answered honestly “They didn’t hurt me but my side still hurts from when the guards attacked us.”

“Let me see.” Ahura pulled up his shirt and everyone saw dark bruises covering his left side. “You need a healer.”

“You mean a doctor?”

“Sorta. Give me the bag.” Ahura pushed it over to his father, who awkwardly unzipped it with bound hands. “Take your books out, please.” The boy pulled a bunch of coloring books and comics out, dropping them on the floor next to the bag like trash, then his father carefully withdrew a weird rectangular thing and his aunt gasped.

“What is it?”

“It’s called an Obelisk, only Inhumans can safely handle it. If humans try then they turn to stone.” Maximus set the stone thing down “It’s full of Terrigen Crystals.” He reached into the bag before thinking better of it and putting the Obelisk back, “These are all Inhuman artifacts that were found outside Attilan, except for the black crystals- those are deadly to our kind.”

Medusa asked “Why would you bring them then?”

“Because they’re deadly to our kind and I was able to secure a small sample. This is all just a small sample of what the people who tried to take my son have.”

Black Bolt reached out to his angry wife and made a series of gestures. Despite his past betrayals, the king was willing to trust his brother just this once. Ahura was a spitting image of Maximus and although he seemed healthy enough, his father was a mess. His clothes were nearly tattered, which enabled them to see he was malnourished, possibly emaciated. The tattered state of his clothes also put his many injuries on display, which supported Ahura’s claim that they were attacked. The headwound was a bit concerning, making Black Bolt want to get both his brother and nephew to a healer. Aside from his injured side, Ahura seemed fine, just tired and maybe a little underweight, which made Black Bolt wonder about the pair’s living situation. He managed to convey his concerns to Medusa efficiently and effectively, leading her to give the order for the guards to take them to a healer. At Ahura’s sudden look of terror, she ordered they be kept in the same room for the examination. Showing a bit of compassion, she also told the guards to take the cuffs off Maximus, reasoning “Attilan is the safest place for Ahura and I’m sure Maximus won’t jeopardize that with one of his stunts.” The cuffs came off and the two were escorted out, the guards had to practically drag Maximus who couldn’t seem to find his balance. They were barely out of the room when the rest of the family came in to discuss the new development, Gorgon having received word from his subordinates. Medusa preempted their questions by saying “We don’t know much now except the boy’s name is Ahura, Maximus is his father, they were attacked and Maximus managed to steal some Inhuman artifacts as well as some kind of poison from their pursuers. They’re seeing a healer right now.”

Black Bolt signed, “Maximus must have told Ahura about us, he knew a few signs.”

Karnak asked “Did you ask who was after them?”

“No, Maximus appeared on the verge of collapse,” said Medusa.

Crystal said “If Ahura really is Maximus’ son then he’s family. How old is he?”

“Young enough to be plausible,” answered Karnak.

Triton asked his brother “Do you really think Maximus would go through all this trouble to fake a kid, knowing we could have him sedated and run a DNA test?”

“No.”

When the healer's report confirmed that Maximus was one missed meal away from death while Ahura was only mildly underweight, the Royal Family was stunned into silence. The apprentice healer giving the report continued, nerves giving him a stutter “From what Maximus has said, their captors incentivized food and tried to lure Ahura away with promises of treats. Maximus believes his son’s repeated refusals had a negative effect on their rations.” The young man kept his gaze on the device in his hands, reading the healer’s notes and avoiding the royals’ gazes “Maximus leveraged his status as an expert on Inhuman science to keep them from experimenting on Ahura, today that strategy failed which is what prompted their escape.” He glanced up at the king for a moment before turning back to the report “Maximus sustained extensive injuries during their escape, exacerbated by his emaciated state. Ahura has several partial fractures from the crash-”

“Crash?” asked Crystal.

Gorgon answered for the nerve-wracked apprentice “Their plane crashed about a mile outside the city.”

“Right. He has several partial fractures and mild burns from the crash, he’s underweight and malnourished but a proper diet should clear that up. His worst injuries are on his left side, the report says the bruising ran deep.” He silently cursed his mentor, how was he supposed to report on injuries like that to the king? “This is only an initial report, of course, and Maximus’ extensive injuries took precedence.” He switched screens and handed the device to Gorgon with shaky hands, “That is everything we’ve learned about their captors.” When he was dismissed, the apprentice bowed and bolted from the room.

Gorgon smiled “Maximus must’ve driven the healer crazy to give a report this detailed.” He shared the screen with Karnak “We could easily find the base with this.”

“Time is likely of the essence.” Karnak said “If they no longer need Maximus then they’ve likely perfected their experiments.”

“Right.”

The king and queen shared a look before Medusa said “You should bring any survivors of the experiments back. Maximus claimed that everything he brought was only a small sample of what his captors had and that included an Obelisk.” She didn’t have to say that Karnak was in charge of planning the mission, that was a given for the master strategist. “Gorgon, I think it would be best if the guards watching Maximus kept their distance from Ahura. I doubt the boy will be easily parted from his father and based on the healer’s report, neither is in any condition to put up much of a fight.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Just leave them be in whatever room the healer left them, post guards outside. Maximus is the only family Ahura knows and we’ve seen how far he will go to protect his son.”

“Of course.” They may not like Maximus, may hardly consider him family, but they could all agree that nobody deserved the treatment both Maximus and Ahura were subjected to.

Looking at the bag sitting where their new family member had taken it off and the collection of books set aside, Crystal asked “Do you think he’d want his comics?”

“No. If he wanted them, he would have grabbed them. Ahura is the one who threw them aside, Maximus only handled the Obelisk and he put it right back after showing us.” Medusa told Karnak, who had approached the bag as she spoke, “Maximus claimed that everything except the black crystals were Inhuman artifacts. He said he brought the crystals because they are deadly to our kind.”

Karnak nodded before carefully looking through the bag, finding something concealed in the bag’s backing. Careful not to jostle anything inside the bag, he managed to tear away the hastily sewn fabric and removed a folder. Flipping through the folder, he said “There’s a couple maps in here along with a lot of research. It all looks like it was done in a rush, and bad lighting.”

“How can you tell the lighting was bad?”

“The pages are mostly undamaged but there seems to be segments missing, like he couldn’t see where the paper ended and there are parts where the writing vanished like he couldn’t tell when the pen ran out of ink. Added to the fact that the folder has clearly been sewn in a few times if the string buried in the tears are anything to go by.”

“What do the papers say?”

“I don’t know, it’s not written in any language I’m familiar with. Any idea who Ahura’s mother is?”

“No, it didn’t come up.”

Gorgon checked the files on the handheld “Nothing here either, apparently they either didn’t think to ask or he didn’t deign to answer.”

“Without reading the notes, I can’t be sure what the maps lead to or where they begin. All I can tell is that he was most likely working in secret and that it was all done by hand, some of the writing is layered.”

“We can worry about that later.” Medusa decided “Right now, we have more pressing concerns.”

Karnak and Gorgon left with Triton to prepare, the strategist telling his brother “They’ll be more likely to trust someone who’s clearly not human.”

Black Bolt and Medusa finished court before going to check on Maximus and Ahura, their brother/-in-law and nephew. Maximus was either unconscious or simply sleeping, it was hard to tell. His body was covered in bandages, which did nothing to hide the fact he was skin and bones, or rather skin, bones and blood. Ahura was sitting in a bed beside his father, glaring at a young woman who might have been trying to feed him based on the tray in front of him. The boy’s glare was adorable, more of a pout really. As they came in, Black Bolt knocked on the wall behind him beside the door. Ahura still didn’t look happy, and while it hurt slightly that he didn’t trust them anymore than a servant, the couple understood that they were equally strangers to him. The young woman with him quickly explained “The healers said he needs to eat and sleep but he won’t do either.”

“We’ll take it from here, you’re dismissed,” said Medusa. Bowing quickly, the other Inhuman made a break for it. “Why won’t you eat?” the queen asked her nephew.

The boy muttered, “Not supposed to take food from strangers, don’t want it either.” He was sitting cross legged on the bed, now glaring at the tray instead of them, with his face resting on his fist.

When Black Bolt began to sign, it gave Medusa an idea and instead of translating, she asked “Did your father teach you your uncle’s language?”

“No, just a few quick gestures like I showed you. He had to hide it under a book and the book wasn’t very big.” Her heart broke at how well he understood the situation. “Why? What’d he ask?”

“How old are you?”

“I dunno.” Helpful, Black Bolt’s hand on her arm kept Medusa from getting too frustrated, although her hair still flicked around a bit with her annoyance. Ahura pushed the tray away and threw himself backwards, “I can’t sleep, even if I wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not time.”

“How do you know when it’s time?”

“The lights flicker before they go out in the lab and dad holds me, whispering stories.” His eyes lit up briefly “Is it true the Genetic Council made a giant teleporting dog and Black Bolt gave it to your sister to keep them from killing it?”

“Yes.” Why did Maximus have to tell his son the reason Black Bolt gave Lockjaw to Crystal? Black Bolt removed his hand and Medusa turned to him, watching as he glanced at his brother who was out cold then looked up at the lights. She grabbed his arm before he could enact his plan, whispering “We can’t let Ahura sleep on top of Maximus.” Black Bolt’s eyebrows creased and he shook his head before pointing from Medusa to the lights then from himself to Ahura and glancing at his brother again. “Okay.”

Ahura asked “What does he want?”

“Black Bolt had an idea to help you sleep since the healers would probably ban us from the room if we let you sleep on your father. What if Black Bolt holds you instead and I’ll get the lights?”

“No.” Ahura pointed at the window then sat up, keeping his back to the wall as he curled up “Daddy said Attilan would be different, better.”

“Did the doctors give your dad something to help him sleep?”

“No, they tried but he wouldn’t let them.” Then he probably wasn’t sedated, Medusa touched his arm and the younger Boltagon brother woke instantly. “Ahura won’t eat or sleep and the healers say he needs both.”

Maximus didn’t sit up, he just stared at her for a few seconds before speaking, “Ahura. I’ll check your food when we wake up but right now, we both need sleep. Your aunt Medusa will turn the light off and you can pull the blanket over your head, understood?”

“Yes, daddy.” Black Bolt pulled the curtains closed over the window as Medusa turned the light off, sending the room into near total darkness.

Maximus was awake for an hour each day, sorting their food. The healers were insistent that he not move while he was recovering, which made things difficult. He combined their food, took the juice and gave him water, Ahura only ate specific foods. Maximus ate less than his son, which the healers didn’t seem too concerned about. For several weeks, the rest of the Royal Family tried and failed to connect with Ahura. Then Maximus was cleared to move, although he was still confined to bed and closely monitored. Ahura seemed more at ease with his father actually checking his food and he became more sociable. It took them two months to figure out why he was wary around them, members of the Royal Guard tried to forcibly remove him from the room and triggered a panic attack. By the time he was fully recovered, Maximus had been put on a probation of sorts so he could raise Prince Ahura even if he never earned the title Prince back himself.


	2. Facing the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maximus shares a painful part of his past with the Royal Family before Rheon attacks

Maximus' willingness to give up anything for Ahura frankly disturbed the Royal Family. He habitually gave the boy food from his own plate at meals instead of the serving dishes in the middle of the table, as though he didn’t feel entitled to anything he himself wasn’t given. At the slightest provocation, he would provide several reasons why they needed him, why they shouldn’t get rid of him. When one person made the mistake of implying Ahura would be better off without him, he nearly killed them before suffering a panic attack. That was a turning point for the rest of the family. Prior to that disastrous incident, they struggled with Maximus' paradoxical behavior. He’d go from arguing his worth to acting like his old self, insisting on being Ahura’s teacher in a way that left no room for argument. He could go from desperate to arrogant with the flip of a switch, it didn’t make sense until he was seen having a panic attack. He had a serious aversion to being separated from Ahura, even though his young son's constant presence limited where he could go. That made addressing the matter of his fragile mental and emotional state difficult until Crystal found him watching Ahura run around a courtyard, the elder Boltagon sitting in one corner either writing or sketching, it was hard to tell. She moved as quietly as she could to sit next to him, "You’re not okay and not dealing with it will only hurt Ahura in the long run, we both know that’s the last thing you want."

"The last thing I want is to be separated from my son by anything short of my own death and I don’t trust anyone except for my brother to care about Ahura as more than the bastard son of a traitorous failed usurper. I’ll keep him close, as I would have if we’d been able to stay with his mother’s tribe, until I’m sure the novelty of his existence won’t wear off leaving- well, you know exactly what I’m talking about." Maximus projected his little tirade into her head, outwardly ignoring her in favor of his work and watching his son. She noticed he was sketching the same maps they’d found in Ahura’s backpack, most likely from memory. As that thought hit the surface, his hand stilled and he slowly turned to her, snapping aloud "You had no right to claim that folder." He stood up and called "Ahura, time to go inside." Then stormed off.

When she relayed her latest encounter to the others, she added "He didn’t seem upset until I recognized the map. He was totally calm then he snapped and stormed off."

Gorgon said "He didn’t even try to do anything, just left."

"I’m pretty sure he’s aware that the Royal Guards will take him down at the first sign of trouble."

"He used the word tribe?" Karnak interrupted before a fight could break out.

"Yeah."

"That explains a lot." Everyone turned to face him for an elaboration "If Ahura’s mother was a member of an isolated tribe then there may be no records for Ahura outside the base they escaped from and now Attilan. We’ll probably never get a name if Maximus really thinks that we’re allowing him and Ahura to stay because we’re amused by the idea that Ahura is Maximus' son, that Maximus has a son, that Black Bolt has a nephew and the Royal Family has a member we never knew about. If he thinks we’re letting them live here because Ahura’s existence is novel then he’s never gonna trust us. He’s spent Ahura’s entire life making sacrifices for his son. He’s given up food, freedom, safety, he even told you he’s more than willing to die for his son. That’s his mindset, he’s focused on Ahura, on doing whatever it takes to keep him safe from harm, and he has been for years. I wonder what’s in those papers that’s so important to Maximus."

"Just the only picture of Ahura’s mother that ever existed as well as the only thing she ever wrote," answered Maximus from the doorway "That folder is mine. It’s not an Inhuman artifact, it’s not something Ahura was given as a bribe, it’s my personal property and you knew that when you took it." He was too angry to play things safe, "You will give it back."

"Or what?" challenged Gorgon before falling to his knees and grabbing his head in pain.

For a few moments, the Royal Family thought Maximus might kill him in anger before he stopped. "I thought that the papers were destroyed with the bribes, that is the only reason I didn’t demand them sooner. They’re mine, the only thing I have kept since I met Ahura’s mother; everything else, everything she had, everything she touched was destroyed by the same people who took Ahura, it’s all gone. I shouldn’t have to give a reason or provide leverage to get my wife's belongings returned to me."

"Wife?" asked Crystal before reminding Maximus "We don’t know anything about Ahura’s mother."

"She was sick her entire life, modern doctors and medicine went against her culture so I don’t know what illness she suffered from. We met when she was sent on a spiritual journey and wandered right into danger. I tried to convince her to put her health first, especially once she got pregnant and her odds of survival plummeted. She refused, even though getting pregnant out of wedlock was a crime punishable by death in her culture. I went with her to tell her parents and instead claimed a courtship, giving me the right to care for her so long as I joined the tribe. I integrated with the tribe as a healer, using herbal remedies. Since the pregnancy was discovered before we were wed, nobody supported her during the birth and she died. Her cousin, I think it was, tried to pull me away as soon as she passed but I stabbed him and kept working. The odds of either of them surviving were low but obviously, it happened and was considered a miracle, or rather a living baby born from a dead mother was considered miraculous. Suddenly they were all supporting us and granting her funeral rites, the tribe was slaughtered while performing those rites. You can find the rest in the records you’ve no doubt seized. Happy?" He was angry, just barely keeping his power in check and only for Ahura’s sake. He’d gladly kill them all for making him relive the best and most painful year of his life if his son’s safety wasn’t at stake. They could all see he was one wrong word away from slipping into a homicidal rage, Karnak quickly left to get the folder.

Returning it, the Shatterer said "There’s no picture in there, it was like that when I found it."

"Is this the same folder you found these exact pages in?"

"Yes."

"Then the picture is here." Taking several deep breaths, he asked Crystal for a flame and held the folder over it to reveal a portrait of a woman drawn in invisible ink on the side. Seeing this, Maximus stormed out before more questions could be asked. He was visibly shaking and took the longest route back to his rooms that he could. He and Ahura were allowed to share a room; his son was a heavy sleeper once he fell into a good slumber and a light sleeper when he didn’t want to sleep so he was able to slip away from the boy to confront his family.

Setting the folder on a dresser, he quietly collapsed and silently cried as the possible consequences of his actions played out in his head. They’d get over their shock sooner or later, they’d remember he stepped out of line, his mental assault of Gorgon would not go unpunished. Just as he was starting to calm down, he realized Ahura wouldn’t allow himself to be separated, that whatever punishment Maximus had to endure would be witnessed by his son. The vicious cycle went on for a few hours before Maximus was able to pull himself up and return to his bed for a thankfully dreamless sleep. His internal alarm clock woke him up shortly after he’d fallen asleep and he went through the motions to prepare both himself and Ahura for family breakfast. The meal always ended with assignments for those whose duties weren’t clearly defined, like Crystal and Maximus. The Family decided not to mention the previous night's confrontation, which hurt Maximus worse than any beating could because it put him in a state of suspense as he awaited the inevitable discipline.

Maximus kept up a facade, playing along with their normalcy act until Crystal caught him in the courtyard and a habit from his time in captivity kicked in. He set aside his work, pushed his sleeves up and held his hands out, being very still. His fingers were curled, not tight enough for a fist but enough to be noticeable, and his wrists were bent down. Crystal wouldn’t have understood if she didn’t see the collection of scars on his arms, which were still lacking muscle or fat, making the scars look all the more painful. She couldn’t tell by looking what made them but she could safely assume Maximus was expecting her to add to them. His posture was very submissive, not like the arrogant treacherous cousin she knew and from the way he was slumped in defeat with his head bowed, she could see similar marks on his back. Crystal realized that they’d seriously misunderstood what the healer meant by extensive injuries. The waiting was killing Maximus, he just wanted to get his punishment over with, while Ahura was distracted exploring the courtyard, being exposed to nature for the first time since he was an infant. He didn’t want his son to bear witness, the boy had already seen enough of his punishments that teaching him it wasn’t right felt like lying. Finally, Crystal spoke "I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to ask what language your wife was writing in."

"I was trying to teach her to write, it didn’t go as planned." He rested his hands on his knees but didn’t move to resume his work. Crystal realized he probably thought that this was an interrogation or that she was just waiting to get her answers before she hurt him.

"What did the healer say about your scars?" She cursed herself for being tactless.

"Nothing to me."

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"I was a prisoner then, remember?"

Oh, crap, she forgot. They weren’t keeping him in a cell but the Royal Guards posted outside his recovery room made things pretty clear. "I’m sorry."

He was in trouble anyway, Maximus decided as Crystal moved to stand from her crouched position beside him, "Why are you making me wait?"

"What are you waiting for?"

He really hated being on the receiving end of mind games "Last night, Gorgon," he wished he could be more articulate but he didn’t want her to think he was ignoring her and walk away while he tried to think of what to say.

"You’re not in trouble for that, you-" she could see he didn’t believe her for a second. "You can ask your brother, I don’t think you have anything to fear about that."

He nodded and tugged his sleeves back down, "I won’t interrupt your meetings again." The hollowness in his voice hurt more than any physical blow could as she realized how broken he was.

Black Bolt shot off a series of signs at dinner that night which Medusa tactfully didn’t translate to tell his brother that he wasn’t in trouble. Maximus' broken state became more clear, especially to the king and queen, when he nodded mutely before apologizing in sign. Luckily, Ahura didn’t know what the signs meant. The little boy was also distracted by asking Crystal about Lockjaw. Maximus smiled at his son, "Perhaps Crystal could introduce you to Lockjaw tomorrow." The boy asked about the dog every chance he got, his reaction to being offered a chance to see the dog was priceless. "Lockjaw doesn’t like me so you’ll have to go without me." Ahura reacted to that by pouting. "It’s fine. Don’t try to tell me you don’t want to meet a giant teleporting dog. After Crystal introduces you, you’ll be able to play with him anytime you want."

"Really?" Ahura looked at Crystal with wide eyed excitement.

Crystal said "Almost anytime, he’s still my dog but I’m sure he’ll love playing with you."

Ahura was too distracted asking about Lockjaw and how the dog will know when he wants to play to see his father’s hands shake. Maximus had grown tired of hiding the nerve damage after his almost sleepless night. Once Ahura finished eating, he tapped the boy’s shoulder and whispered in his ear "Maybe Crystal could show you where Lockjaw hangs out right now if you ask nicely." He gave her a subtle nudge to accept when his son immediately ran over and asked. With Ahura safely out of the room, Maximus preemptively answered the family's questions by rolling up his sleeves and giving them a 360 view of his scarred arms "I believe it’s nerve damage. My hands constantly shake, I can’t safely handle much more than a pencil." He took a deep breath "It’s most likely the reason for the recent attempt to take Ahura, a half-blood Inhuman is surely more valuable to them than a scientist who can’t handle lab equipment. I’m sure you’ve noticed the steps I took to hide it and misattributed them to anxiety. Never reaching out to grab," he gestured to the middle of the table, "Never even trying to access my old lab. You probably thought stress made my hands shake, that only makes it worsen enough that my illusion fails to cover it. Ahura knows my hands shake, he’s had to be my hands for almost half his life, but he doesn’t fully grasp the idea that my hands shaking is bad. Just like he doesn’t know about his mother. He knows everyone has a mother but for him, she’s just someone I tell stories about. I’d like to keep it that way until he’s old enough to handle the concept of her death without blaming himself." They saw the shaking worsen and when Maximus caught them staring once again at his hands, he pushed his chair back and pressed his hands to his knees to steady them, leaning forward enough for a peek at his back to be possible.

Karnak, ever the tactless one, asked "What about your back?"

"Similar injuries but no nerve damage that I’m aware of. There should be video in the files you seized." He resisted the urge to remark on how Karnak would’ve seen it if he hadn’t been distracted by Maximus' personal belongings but the increased shaking gave away his stress. He straightened, shaky hands grabbing his glass of water, "Ahura saw everything and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t remind him of that. Knowing you, you’d convince him that I just haven’t messed up enough to warrant that treatment here, that it was merely extreme given the cause. That thinking is counterproductive to teaching him that Attilan is safe, a concept as foreign to him as Russia is to you." He smiled at his own smart remark. Now that he wasn’t hiding his nerve damage or his scars, they saw more of the old Maximus. He was still subdued by the thought that Ahura’s safety continued to depend on his good behavior but he was looking less broken. Maximus raised an eyebrow at that thought, mentally projecting the term baby steps. He finished his water and asked to be excused, waiting for Black Bolt’s nod before hurrying out of the room.

Karnak said "Nerve damage only explains some of his strange behavior but I suppose the video he referred to will explain the rest."

When Karnak found the video compilation in Maximus' file from the facility, even the Shatterer felt sick watching. He told the family in no uncertain terms that they shouldn’t watch after eating because it was nauseating. Once they finally got around to seeing it, a few of them getting sick, Karnak told them "It gets worse."

"How?" asked Gorgon, looking a bit unsteady.

"Since finding this file, I’ve identified the person who created the compilation. Their file says they’re from the same place as Maximus and Ahura, the same isolated village. I believe they might have been behind the massacre Maximus mentioned."

The man himself spoke up from the doorway "He’s Ahura’s uncle, his mother’s brother and possible poisoner. Ariela often went on vision quests, part of spiritual healing, and she got better, reinforcing her belief in them. I believe that her brother was poisoning her, as he had his other sisters, and the quests gave the poison time to leave her system. Since none of the sisters ever saw a doctor, there’s no way of knowing for sure. According to him, I killed her when I failed to heal her. He'll likely try to move against Attilan." Maximus let slip a tribal curse before continuing "If slaughtering his own people is any indication." For all his betrayal, senseless killing wasn’t part of Maximus' MO. When he wanted to rule Attilan, he wanted there to be people to rule, which meant he had to keep the killing to a minimum.

"What does he want?" asked Crystal.

Maximus smirked "It hardly matters as I’m not sure he knows. He’ll get his people into the city and possibly into the palace, he'll be with them when he does but that’s probably as far as his actual planning will reach. I believe he betrayed his people because they were too focused on Ahura’s birth and they ignored him when offering condolences on Ariela's death. He’s capable of short-term planning but I doubt he ever has a long game."

"How will he get in?" asked Gorgon.

"I’m not naive enough to believe that there’s no way someone couldn’t figure out what I told Ahura in secret, although I do believe his uncle will find out through dumb luck. I told my son about the tunnels for the day we’d get out of there and he’d need to seek shelter here. I always intended for Ahura to live here. I actually had permission from his mother’s tribe to take him and leave after the mourning period for his mother passed. Ahura doesn’t know that," he used the same curse as before, "Is in any way related to him. I told him to trust his uncle, I’d rather he not know one betrayed him and his mother, although I’m sure he’ll discover the full truth someday."

"Okay." Crystal said "You said he’d come here. If he’s not a big planner, how do you know?"

"He’s been going after Ahura since his nephew was born and," he gestured towards the screen where they’d watched Ahura’s uncle beat Maximus. "That’s the most consistent he’s ever been. He’ll come. He’ll be coming after me and Ahura, ignoring the fact that he no longer has the upper hand."

"You have a plan," observed Medusa because of course Maximus had a plan.

"I have several now that his leverage is gone, it all depends on what he does once he gets here."

In the days to come, Ahura helped Crystal map the secret passages in the palace in between playing with Lockjaw and lessons with his father. When his son wasn’t with him, Maximus told Karnak and Gorgon everything he knew about their enemy. They had been able to get the kids out because the base wasn’t at full capacity, many of the guards were either incapacitated or elsewhere. The former prince gave them a much better idea of the enemy force than their raid had. His briefings also explained why he only attempted escape once and allowed himself to be abused as he was, Ahura was in more danger from the people outside whatever room they were in when he was beaten than those inside the room with him. He went over everything and advised Gorgon to have the Royal Guards keep their distance when the inevitable attack happened, stating "You want them to think your forces are endless so that they will conserve their ammunition instead of slaughtering their enemy." He also drafted designs for specialized grips to be added to Inhuman weapons that would prevent outsiders from using them. Drafting was all he could contribute to the improvement of Attilan technology. His shaking hands forced him to erase as much as he drew or wrote for legibility. Crystal shared the routes Ahura showed her with the rest of the family, she was the one who followed him through the tunnels because she scared him the least. He wasn’t scared of Black Bolt or Medusa, in fact he wanted to learn their language, but the king and queen were too busy being king and queen to go exploring. Triton and Lockjaw didn’t scare him too much, although he didn’t really like Triton for some reason and Lockjaw was too big to fit in the tunnels, not to mention a dog who couldn’t speak to report the routes.

During one of Crystal's briefings, Maximus said "The tunnels are more extensive than I thought. If Ahura uses a route I didn’t tell him about, he should be able to avoid them unless they get lost." None of the family knew what to call the people who had experimented on Inhuman kids so the royals used nouns or pronouns. Maximus stopped to think before adding "It’s possible that there could be more than tunnels hidden within the palace walls."

"If Ahura uses tunnels you can’t navigate, how are you going to find him when it’s safe to come out?"

"Using your map. Ahura likes some tunnels more than others, doesn’t he?"

"Right."

They didn’t get a chance to fully map the hidden passageways before they were exploited by the enemy. At the first sign of trouble, Ahura was sent running for the tunnels. The invaders wore special helmets to block psychic powers and soon Maximus was on his knees, shaky hands cuffed behind his back. His brother-in-law was stupid enough to remove his helmet to gloat and Maximus took over his mind, making him shoot his men. Then Rheon removed the cuffs and triggered the failsafe measures that kept agents from betraying him since he took over before escorting the psychic to the throne room. Maximus kept his hands behind his back and made sure his thrall didn’t trigger the implants that were put in test subjects when he took out his army. In the throne room, Maximus dropped to the floor as though pushed, taking himself out of the line of fire. Once the army was obliterated, he retracted his influence and stood. Predictably his former tormentor immediately blamed him for the murders. "I only made you shoot, I didn’t make you go for the kill and I certainly didn’t make you enjoy it." He turned to walk away and the other man tried to shoot him, only to click on empty.

As the Royal Guard took him into custody, the would-be conqueror screamed at Maximus "You failed her!"

"And you killed her." Maximus left to find his son, scanning for his son’s mind as he wandered through the tunnels. He found Ahura in a cavern full of Terrigen Crystals. He returned to the throne room, leaving his son in the secret room "You need to see what Ahura found."

The Royal Family was awestruck, proving none of them knew about the Crystals. Medusa said "We really need to map these tunnels."

Ahura looked at his father, who explained "These are Terrigen Crystals, we don’t want to lose them." The little boy sighed and pulled a few small crystals out of his pocket, setting them down on the floor.

Crystal said "I wonder how much Terrigen is in here."

Maximus quickly did the math in his head "Assuming the walls are all the same," he gave his answer. At her raised eyebrow, he crossed his arms, shaky hands ruining the effect as he explained "It’s geometry. If you assume the walls beside the door are just like the walls across from the door then you can figure out how much space they take up. Then, assuming all of these crystals follow the normal rules for Terrigen Crystals, you can use their volume to determine the amount of Terrigen held within." He said it like it was simple, like anyone could do that math in their head in seconds. He seemed to falter a moment later and Crystal mentally groaned as she realized he was scanning her mind to gage her reaction, that he was always doing that. Maximus responded to that development by ushering Ahura out and taking the tunnels to their room, picking up the folder he’d left on the dresser that one almost sleepless night to show his son the last thing that remained of his mother’s.

Maximus felt broken, even without knowing that everyone saw him as broken. He could remember how he used to act, might have considered pretending to be that man if not for Ahura who only knew the man he was now. The man he was now was a father, the man he was now had shaky nerve damaged hands, the man he was now was afraid not arrogant, the man he was now had too many injuries to count. The man Ariela fell in love with would’ve been better, that man was caring, was a healer, that man died with her, died a swift and painful demise. The man his family knew was Maximus the Mad, he died a death by a thousand cuts, a fitting end for a monster. The real question, Maximus supposed as he wished he had a lighter to show Ahura the invisible ink, was who would he be next. He knew who he was now and who he had been but who was he becoming? After all, he wouldn’t be broken forever, he hoped.


	3. Spirit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maximus visits the tribal lands to recover artifacts and share Ariela’s culture with their son

While Crystal watched over Ahura the next day, Maximus took Lockjaw to recover some artifacts from the ruins of the tribal land his son was born on. In keeping with tribal law, he directed Lockjaw to a place a few miles away. Karnak was waiting for him when he returned, "What?"

"You stole Lockjaw-"

"I was checking to see if anything survived the decimation of Ariela's tribe." He opened the bag he'd brought to show Karnak "It would be a great violation of everything they believed in to bring outsiders. Lockjaw knows how to sit and stay, the rest of you would have forced me to betray my dead wife's culture."

"Oh."

"I expect this sort of nearsighted prejudice from Gorgon or Triton, maybe Medusa. From you, I would have expected a few questions, a verbal trap. I suppose I misremembered things." He closed the bag, "Unless you're me, Ahura or Ariela's brother, Rheon, you can’t touch any of it without violating the culture. You of all people should know better than to do that."

Noticing the dirt covering his shaking hands, Karnak asked "Did you bury something before the massacre?"

"If you’re implying I knew in advance that it was going to happen then answer me this, why would I risk both myself and Ahura by doing nothing? If you’re genuinely asking, I dug up a box that was buried long before Ariela's birth, a box that is supposed to contain everything needed to revive her people, not that I can use its contents. I’m not a blood born member of the tribe and I have no idea what the price for reviving the tribe would be, even if I knew how. Gorgon and Triton will listen to you if you tell them not to touch any of the artifacts, it’s dangerous for outsiders."

"Right." Karnak stepped aside to let Maximus leave "Keep that stuff in your room."

Maximus went to his chambers, washed his hands and unpacked the bag. First, he placed the stones around the room in their proper places, leaving the box on top of his dresser with the latch facing away from the room. He carefully placed a ceremonial knife into a sheath then used a piece of a brown necklace cord to tie the sheath to the belt loops on his left side. On the other side, he placed a rectangular card that looked like sandpaper, folding the edges around his belt to keep it there. Once he recovered from his years of starvation, he would be able to simply slip the two items into place. Next he sat down with a small clear crystal and a roll of cord to fashion a necklace for Ahura, tying the cord around the crystal. Under his shirt, he was wearing a similar necklace of his own.

Maximus stashed the bag he used to carry the artifacts then sought out his son. Crystal was the only member of the Royal Family to reach out and accept Ahura, even though the boy had serious trust issues for his age which made the others hesitant to try. She was also the only one who made any progress mapping the secret passages that Ahura had a knack for navigating. Maximus knew where his son’s favorite secret entrance/exit for the tunnels was and simply waited for them there. "Daddy!" Ahura got excited every time he saw his dad, even though they both knew there would always be a next time whenever they split up.

"Ahura." Maximus pulled the necklace he’d made out of his pocket.

"You found it?!"

"No, I made it." The young Inhuman turned around to let his father tie the necklace on.

Crystal asked "What is that?"

"Members of Ariela’s tribe use them to facilitate visions."

"And the knife?"

"I’d rather wait and show everyone at once."

Crystal brought up the knife again at dinner after they finished eating and Maximus sat back, shaky hands removing the blade from its sheath before one hand held Ahura’s arm down on the table and the other quickly ran the blade along the board on his belt to ignite it with a whispered word. He held the flaming blade over his son’s hand and the flame turned a vivid green color. "It’s not hot," said the little boy as his father stopped holding his hand in place and let him touch the blade "It’s like air."

"When you were born, you underwent a few rituals that made you an official member of your mother's tribe. This is how the tribe identifies members." Maximus turned to his brother, "Do you trust me?"

After a moment of thought, Black Bolt nodded and set his own hand on the table the same way Maximus had held Ahura’s. Maximus was using both hands to hold the weapon over his brother's hand when the flames returned to their natural color and Black Bolt withdrew his hand quickly before signing "It was hot then."

"The flame changes in response to members of the tribe. To everyone else, it’s just regular fire." To demonstrate, he carefully rested the blade on his own shoulder and the fire became yellow. "The color is linked to the creation myth. There are six fundamental forces or concepts that combine to form all that is, each represented by a color." He stopped his explanation and whispered a word to extinguish the flame when his shaky grasp caused the knife to slide towards his throat.

Before sheathing it, he let Ahura touch it. "It’s cold."

Once the weapon was safely put away, Maximus continued "Time is green, space is blue, reality is red, mind is yellow, soul is orange, power is purple. These six things combined to form the universe and the balance between them preserves it."

"That’s an interesting story. Most creation myths tell of a creator," said Karnak.

Crystal guessed "The flames reflect the fundamental forces. Green is time and Ahura has time. Yellow is mind and you’re a psychic."

"That’s one interpretation. I don’t know if that is what it means or not. I was given the knife as a wedding gift. Ahura’s grandfather ran the blade over his knuckles before grabbing my hand and pressing his down." Maximus demonstrated with Ahura, pressing his own hand to the table with Ahura’s on top. "He gave me the bloody knife and lit his own, holding it next to our hands so everyone could see the flames split into two colors. Very strange man, he could go from intense to intensely friendly in moments. Also an expert on all of their many divination rituals, he told me that I wasn’t ready to read the flames then told me their creation story which incidentally told me how to read the flames. Ceremonial knives were their version of giving away the bride. Rheon, Ariela's brother, was a protector. His duty was to protect their culture from perversion, which meant he saw the many uses of the knife but he wasn’t married so he was never allowed to carry one, a fact that seemed to elude him as he got very angry when his father told me to keep the one he handed me."

"What happened to Rheon?"

"The day Ahura was born he disappeared from the village and was declared a blood traitor. Protectors aren’t allowed to leave the village because they’re supposed to be ever present as a symbolic deterrent. I don’t know what came over him that day." Maximus projected an illusory image of Rheon into the minds of the adults around the table, making his meaning clear before excusing himself and his son to practice a tribal ritual.


	4. Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahura's first meeting with the Genetic Council goes a bit sideways

Maximus carefully hid his ceremonial knife and striking board on the back of his belt as he dressed for Ahura’s first meeting with the Genetic Council. His son was to be officially inducted into the Royal Family, making the boy heir to the throne. He turned around in time to see Ahura manage to become completely entangled in his dress clothes. "Hold still." His shaking hands made sorting the boy out very difficult and they had to cut through secret passages to arrive on time. Maximus folded his hands behind his back just before the Council filed in. One stern look from Black Bolt held the tongues of the Council members in regards to his brother. The whole ceremony was boring for Ahura who barely managed to stay still through the formalities and needed his father to give him a slight push forward when it was time for his part. The Genetic Council took a blood sample for analysis; Maximus would bet they were looking for a way to dispute his son’s claim on the throne when they did that instead of formally dubbing Ahura the Crown Prince of Attilan.

After the boring meeting, Crystal took Ahura on a tour of the kingdom via Lockjaw. Maximus waited for his brother to finish with the Council, anxious about Ahura’s future. Medusa cut off his questions "They were supposed to name him Crown Prince. We would not have set this up if we’d known they would act that way."

"My presence probably did not help." He read his brother’s signs then lifted up his cloak to reveal the ceremonial knife and pulled his necklace out from under his shirt.

Medusa argued "It’s not like we’re trying to reinstate you."

"Ahura is an outsider, Attilan does not have a history of accepting outsiders." Maximus sighed "When Ahura was born, after Ariela died, I secured permission to take him from the tribe, to bring him here once his birth rites and his mother’s funeral rites were complete. Had Ahura grown up here, as your nephew then he would already be the Crown Prince of Attilan."

"You were always willing to sacrifice everything for him."

"I risked my life trespassing on tribal grounds to marry Ariela so she wouldn’t be executed for getting pregnant by an outsider out of wedlock." His hands shook more when he was upset, something Medusa used to gage his emotions because she knew he hated how they trembled, although he was resigned to them never healing completely. "I doubt showing the Genetic Council evidence of my recent hardships would help matters." Maximus secretly thought that seeing his hands for how they really are had given the Family the last push they needed to believe that he wasn’t playing them but he really didn’t want to let the Council see how weak he’d become and the thought of that was stressing him out to the point that the shaking in his hands was becoming unbearably painful.

Black Bolt reached out a hand to his brother to get his attention then quickly signed reassurances. Maximus took deep breaths to calm down, watching his hands slow in their shaking. He’d never be able to do lab work again and now that the Council had been made aware of his standing within the Family, he doubted how much he could accomplish by drafting. His nerve damaged hands seemed to be a mixed blessing, enabling him and others to properly gage his stress levels while limiting what he could do on his own. He rubbed his hands together, trying to work out the ache before he was able to escape his own mind and focus on the present "As I said, your eligibility isn’t the issue."

"The Council may try to claim a technicality in that Ahura is only of royal Inhuman blood on one side of the family and his mother wasn’t even Inhuman." That statement triggered memories of Ariela, flashbacks of a time when Maximus was happily in love. Shaky breaths preceded his return to the present "Remember that I can’t get married again and you were only able to marry my brother because-"

"I have royal ancestry. Ahura-"

"Hasn't undergone Terrigenesis, even though he is no longer an infant. He grew up in the human world, born to a human mother. There are so many ways that the Council can dispute his claim."

"You must have some ideas for how to counter their points."

"Ahura is still a child."

"Skip the riddles."

"Crystal wasn’t raised as heiress to the throne. Ahura’s still a child, he can still be molded into a proper king. And even though he’s half human, his royal blood is purer than your sister's. I would recommend keeping an eye on their tests with his blood. If they make it look like Ahura’s human heritage would make Terrigenesis inadvisable, well, uh, you know the law. A human cannot rule Inhumans. I know for a fact that Ahura has all the necessary genes for a safe Terrigenesis but the Royal Family cannot be seen feuding with the Genetic Council."

"You already ran the tests? When?"

"Years ago while I was working on an artificial form of Terrigen to replace the, well, let’s just leave it at I was working on artificial Terrigen."

"How did it turn out?" asked Black Bolt.

"Not well. The Artificial Terrigen does induce Terrigenesis but the results are unreliable at best, usually unstable powers that quickly turn fatal. In mutants, it either makes them sick or asymptomatic carriers for the sickness before quickly ravaging their bodies after the illness awakens. I could probably figure out the inoculation formula in case some Artificial Terrigen still exists outside the black crystals I gave you."

"You do that," said Medusa, who was disturbed by how little emotion Maximus showed when he told them about an anti-Inhuman weapon he created.

"Inhumans can be treated for exposure and only mutants act as carriers, to my knowledge. I was the only one who knew how to handle superhumans, I know of the results because I treated the victims." He briefly flashed back to his punishment for failing to make viable Terrigen. Forced to his knees, his hands bound in front of him, he was held in place by one hand on his shoulder as he was whipped and tried not to outwardly react. As soon as it began, the vision was over.

Medusa asked "Is the crystal on your necklace supposed to glow?"

"I don’t know." After a brief pause, he added "I don’t know a lot about the artifacts from Ariela's tribe, I was a member for less than a year. I suppose the glow might be similar to the flames from the knife."

"That makes sense." Refocusing, Medusa said "If you already ran the tests on Ahura then you should be able to replicate them." Maximus held one hand up to demonstrate the problem with that plan. "You could instruct someone else on how to run the tests and then we’ll have our own results to compare the Council's to."

"Very well."

Medusa asked Karnak to be Maximus' hands on the basis that Karnak was the most careful member of the family and they had to keep the test inside the family in case the Council did try to mess with their tests. The Shatterer was more surprised that Maximus had a sample of Ahura’s DNA than that Medusa was asking him to assist the former prince. Maximus kept things professional, simply instructing Karnak in what needed to be done. "Why do you have your son's DNA?" He had asked before they began. The answer took the form of a comb, which made a lot more sense than a secret vial of blood and should have been obvious. Their tests proved that Ahura’s human DNA wouldn’t interfere with his Terrigenesis.

When the Council requested a meeting with the entire Royal Family to discuss the results of their tests, Maximus was confident that the Council would try to tell them that Ahura would be killed by Terrigen Mists. He was shocked to hear them accept his son instead and proceed with the coronation, naming Ahura Boltagon the future King of Attilan. They discussed his future education at dinner, bringing up all the different things he would have to learn before his Terrigenesis Ceremony.

After putting his son to bed in the adjacent room, having been given his own apartment within the palace for just that reason, Maximus sat up sketching. Without thinking, he drew several pictures of Ariela and the various tribal events he had attended. His sketches turned out better when he let his mind wander. He eventually set the sketchbook aside and fell asleep.

On the way to the library for Ahura’s first session with the royal tutor, Maximus told his son "You are the Crown Prince. The tutor can't hurt you but they will tell me if you misbehave so don’t. Simple as that."

"Okay."

Maximus found Crystal waiting outside the lab, "What exactly am I supposed to do?"

"My hands shake too much to use lab equipment and we need to inoculate the people against a potential bioweapon so I need someone to be my hands in order to prepare the first batch of inoculations. Ahura and I won’t need them, we already have the antibodies. Everyone else in Attilan will need to be vaccinated just to be safe. Mutants are also vulnerable but the vaccine won’t work on them."

"You seem very familiar with this poison," Crystal said as she unlocked the lab and followed him in.

"I should, I created it."

"What?"

"I was attempting to replicate Terrigen Crystals and put an end to the experiments. The Artificial Terrigen worked to a degree, the subjects exposed to the Mists did undergo a transformation but the results were unstable and ultimately, I had to administer treatment aimed at undoing the transformation. The mutants who were exposed got very sick and the gifts of those with active mutations became unstable. Sometimes there would be an incubation period during which they were contagious, infecting other mutants with the same illness before succumbing. Aside from nearly dying myself after treating victims, I was also punished. The mutants infected did not survive and as you can imagine, superhumans aren’t the easiest to capture and contain."

"I’m sorry I asked."

Maximus blinked back against the memories "Let’s focus." He gave her careful instructions, treating her almost like Ahura with how much he simplified things. "A simple injection into the arm without a tourniquet, we didn’t have those so I adapted my treatments. We need to make more of these but this should be enough of a sample size. Let’s take a break and see how Ahura’s doing with the tutor." Stepping outside his old lab, fully prepared to use the secret passageways, Maximus suddenly took off running to one of the other labs and without thinking, he punched in his override code. Kitang was overseeing some kind of experiment on Ahura, Crystal knocked everyone back while Maximus tried to free his son.

Once the scientists were taken care of, Crystal froze the restraints to make them easier to break. Ahura leapt into his father’s arms crying. Carrying his son, Maximus transferred the lab surveillance footage to his lab before leaving with Crystal at his side, "I trust you can handle it from here, you'll find evidence in my lab's files."

"Go, take care of Ahura."

Maximus took his son to his room, grabbing his sketchbook and going to Karnak's meditation garden. "What are you doing?"

"I’ll explain in detail later but right now, I just need someone present and quiet so I can help Ahura. We won’t bother you."

Karnak's shields were too great for Maximus to simply project an illusion of what he saw Kitang doing but Ahura was clearly stressed enough for the Shatterer to accept the vague answer with a simple "I don’t want to know," which was the lie of the century because Karnak liked to know everything.

Maximus showed Ahura the sketches he’d drawn the night before. Keeping his voice down, he told his son "This is your mother, Ariela."

"She’s pretty."

"Yeah, she was." Maximus smiled sadly before flipping a few pages ahead "That’s your grandfather and your grandmother, your mom's parents. Your grandmother had to drag your grandfather everywhere he needed to go or he’d just sit around practicing divination and not helping anybody." He pointed to a man flanking his father-in-law "That’s your Uncle Rheon. He was almost married but your would-be aunt passed away." He pointed out different people in the pictures, telling Ahura a little bit about each of them before stopping short of the picture of Ariela's funeral. By then, they’d moved to sitting outside Triton's tank as the fish-like Inhuman spent most of his life submerged. Karnak was briefed on what Crystal saw, which explained Maximus' strange behavior. Sadly, Kitang knew how to manipulate the law and managed to shake the charges while his underlings took the brunt of the punishment for carrying out his orders.


	5. Afterlife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An attack by a reality bender precedes Lai Shi’s willing annexation into the kingdom of Attilan

The Royal Family was sitting down for dinner when three people suddenly appeared behind Maximus. Standing in the middle of the trio was a buzz cut young man; on his right was a little brunette girl and on his left, a blond woman. Maximus quickly identified all three as Adam Roderick, Katya Belyakov and Eva Belyakov. Katya kept chanting "No more pain," in a terrified voice while Adam froze most of the family with a few words. If Eva believed in Adam then that belief died when she saw the crazed predatory grin he wore as he looked at Ahura. Katya grabbed Adam's hand as he began to stalk forward and said more forcefully "No more pain."

"I told you that I’d put an end to all-" Maximus suddenly found himself standing behind Adam with a knife in hand, about to stab him when the intruder said "No more tricks." Maximus ducked under Adam's arm, dropped the knife and pulled Katya away while Eva took advantage of Adam's moment of vulnerability to knock him out.

Katya kept crying "No more pain." Maximus worked one arm out of his sleeve and agreed "No more pain." As he rested his arm on her neck, he let himself feel all the pain inside him for just a moment so that Katya could feel like she took it away.

The little girl fell asleep, holding onto his arm and making her mother cry, "She ha-"

Maximus shushed her, gesturing with his free hand for Eva to come closer. Through some awkward maneuvering, Eva took Maximus' place and was able to pick up her daughter. "You’re both Inhuman so you’re welcome to stay. The Royal Guards will show you where you can sleep tonight then tomorrow you’ll be tested to figure out how you can best serve Attilan and Katya will begin training with her gift."

"Thank you," she mouthed as guards escorted her out. Adam was secured and taken to a cell.

"Adam Roderick will need to be kept unconscious since he has a form of reality bending."

"How do you know them?" asked Medusa.

"I treated Adam after his experiment, the other two I only knew of before today. There was an incident in Bahrain after the little girl, Katya was changed."

"Can we trust them?"

"Adam, not in the slightest. Eva, definitely. This is the only place Katya can get real help so that she doesn’t absorb everyone’s pain when they touch."

"What is Katya's gift?"

"From skimming their memories, it seems that she can feed off emotions and control minds after simply making physical contact. Eva, her mother, has super strength and durability, she remembers being hit by a truck and walking away unscathed."

"You went into their minds?" Medusa sounded offended on behalf of the Belyakovs.

"Which is how I was able to take away the pain Katya kept absorbing whenever someone touched her. I don’t think Katya's fully fluent in English but she knows a few words, obviously."

"How were they changed?" asked Gorgon, almost afraid of the answer.

"I don’t know. As I said, I only knew of the mother-daughter duo. I didn’t know them and I don’t know everything about them."

Ahura asked "Was mom like Eva?"

"I suppose." Maximus muttered a few words in Ariela's language that had Ahura’s face breaking out in a huge grin. "Your mother was actually like Karnak, she had a gift for seeing things as they truly are, which made it very difficult to surprise her because she’d see through lies. I think I only managed to surprise her once and that was the day I met your grandparents."

The next day, Eva tested into the Royal Guard and Katya began to study meditation, learning to block out certain sensations. They were also issued new, permanent quarters. Maximus visited Eva while the woman was practicing some moves she was learning for the Royal Guard. "I need a record of everything, every facility that potential threats to Attilan may be working out of, details on your Terrigenesis and Katya's. We need actionable intel to protect our people."

"You will have it." He offered her a notebook, "I’m not fluent in English."

Maximus nodded to himself "I will see about getting someone to sit down with you and write out your report."

"Thank you."

"How is Katya settling in?"

"She’s doing alright. The clothes we were given include gloves so she can touch people."

"Good. I’ll leave you to your training." He returned the notebook on his way to Ahura.

After reviewing Eva's report, they set a trap for Gordon by taking Ahura via Lockjaw to an isolated cabin. The boy being an Inhuman potential in the middle of nowhere had the desired effect. "I only wish to talk about Katya Belyakov," said Maximus evenly.

"Who are you?"

Maximus carefully controlled his breathing as he answered "Prince Maximus Boltagon of the Inhuman kingdom of Attilan. You are Gordon Sen, son of Yat-Sen and Jiaying Johnson. I want to know what happened to Katya's father Evan Johnston, who your mother promised to expose to Terrigen Mists in return for siring a child by Eva in order to further our species. You are said to be the only way in or out of Lai Shi so you must know how many Bahrains there have been since you underwent Terrigenesis. How many times has someone been exiled for having a less than ideal Terrigenesis? How many people have been driven mad by being exposed at a bad age? Do you know how many of your own people have been killed in preparation for your mother's war?" Maximus tapped Gordon’s chest with a file, "Attilan is interested in protecting all Inhumans. Keep that from Jiaying but show the rest of the Elders, assuming she doesn’t kill them for keeping secrets. When you have an answer, you are welcome to come to Attilan." The file contained a treaty to be signed by the Elders in order to annex their city into Attilan. They would have to surrender their Terrigen Crystals and Kree Diviners but in return, they’d have people with centuries of knowledge on Terrigenesis overseeing selection to ensure much more successful transitions.

The Elders signed and Gordon took his mother to Attilan under the guise of alliance talks. Once they were escorted to the throne room where the entire Royal Family was waiting, he left to retrieve his father and their Terrigen stores, which were in a trunk. As he set it down and Yat-Sen explained what was happening to Jiaying, Gordon lowered himself to his knees, popping open the lid of the trunk to reveal the contents. Yat-Sen moved to hand over the treaty and Jiaying grabbed him, intent on draining him before Eva pulled her off and slammed her down on the ground, careful to avoid skin-on-skin contact as she was with her daughter. Eva and one of her fellow guards took Jiaying away while Yat-Sen continued to approach the throne and bow as he handed over the treaty. The terms were more than fair, Attilan had a bit of an overpopulation problem but they were willing to give Lai Shi a great deal of autonomy as long as they remained loyal to the nation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adam Roderick was actually a part of Karnak's solo series, I changed his origins to make him a victim of the mysterious group that leveraged Ahura against Maximus and gave him elements of Jamie Braddock's story by making him a bit overtly crazy instead of just buying into his own hype. Bonus, Bahrain was undone without AIDA's Framework.


	6. Quake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon's sister finds her family

Maximus figured out how mutants and Inhuman potentials were identified after studying the files recovered from Attilan raids on the facilities Eva exposed for weeks. The answer nearly sent him into a panic attack, luckily he was in the lab with Karnak who talked him down. "What caused that?" Maximus showed him what he found. With a sigh, Karnak said "We have to report this." Maximus nodded, keeping his breathing as even as possible. They showed Black Bolt and Medusa, and Maximus almost missed his brother’s frown as he was distracted by watching the queen's hair.

The former prince suggested "We should inform the X-Men, this threatens their people as well, possibly even more than it threatens ours. Gordon has confirmed that Inhuman potentials are extremely rare, almost too rare to hunt. Whereas mutants rely on anonymity to survive, consciously blending in with humans."

Medusa nodded, "Right," her hair flicking around less indicated she was calming down. "We also need to arrange a meeting with SHIELD."

"Look for an agent with no origin." All three looked at Maximus, "Gordon’s sister was allegedly taken by HYDRA during its original infiltration of SHIELD. Thanks to the latter's ignorance, there’s a chance SHIELD accidentally rescued her from HYDRA. In that case, they wouldn’t know anything about how she came to be. If she’s not an agent then she’ll be on the old Gifted Index, assuming she set off one of the scanners," he gestured to the file, which was actually all about the scanners and their checkered track history- likely checkered due to the assumption that all genetic anomalies are the same instead of differentiating between mutant and Inhuman genes.

"Right. A simple DNA test would confirm her identity as Jiaying's daughter if she is an agent. Otherwise we may have to assume she is dead."

"She’s still young enough to qualify for Terrigenesis as a non-native Inhuman. Her family history indicates her gift will be strong, let Gordon explain that history. If SHIELD still has these scanners and she’s an agent then they have most likely been lying to her, even if only by omission."

"Right." Medusa agreed, "We'll try asking-" Maximus looked unsure with that plan and Medusa switched tracks "What’s your plan?" She was careful to keep her voice and her hair calm.

"I was actually thinking that if we’re operating under the assumption that Daisy is an agent then we have to inform Gordon of the lead and inform the Council of Elders of the potential threat. To avoid sabotaging each other, we should utilize Gordon’s knack for finding Inhuman potentials to identify his sister before bringing both her and her supervisor here. If we ask them to come their preparations will include figuring out what we’re after. Asking for an agent with no known origin will probably make that a much simpler feat. Gordon might even get his sister to look for a gene scanner, which would expedite our investigation." Maximus was a planner and using those skills felt good, he’d had no idea when he would get food while living in the lab or if he would manage to avoid another beating on any given day. No knowledge of the future, short-term or long-term, and he just had to deal with it.

Medusa agreed his stealthier plan was probably better and he reminded her to inform the X-Men, their mutant allies of the potential threat before being dismissed. Once in the hallway, he fled to his room to try to get control of himself.

Skye, just Skye, was brought into the throne room along with Director Coulson. Maximus kept his hands behind his back, a habit by now when he was in the throne room for an official meeting. Skye immediately picked a fight with her brother, which he skillfully countered. Restraining her arms, he smiled down at her "Hello to you too, sis."

"What are you talking about?"

He let go and teleported back a few feet to give her some space, "You’re Inhuman like me, like our mother Jiaying. HYDRA found out about our mother when they made her touch a Kree Diviner, they were chased away by Peggy Carter's people but they came back for her after you were born. Your father, we’re half-siblings so he’s not my father, but your father went a little bit insane after that. He thought HYDRA took both you and mom but I’m guessing you wouldn’t be SHIELD if that happened. Your father was Dr. Calvin Johnson, he was a part of Doctors Without Borders in mom's village. He probably changed his name but mom told me they named you Daisy Johnson."

"Daisy."

Coulson asked "How do we know you’re telling the truth? That you’re not making this up?"

"You could prove it with that pocket scanner, it picks up anomalous DNA like Inhuman or mutant genes.” As the SHIELD reps turned to him, Maximus asked “How do you think someone identified mutant kids before they manifested?”

Gordon teleported right in front of Coulson and held out his hand “That scanner led to the deaths of dozens of kids, mutant and Inhuman alike. Hand it over so we can track down the others and stop them.” Coulson moved slowly. “I’m actually blind so moving slowly after you already endangered my sister with that thing, it’s just pissing me off.”

Suddenly Coulson couldn’t hand the scanner over fast enough. Gordon took it and teleported up to the king, handing it to him before stepping aside. Black Bolt scanned their guests, confirming Coulson to be human and Daisy an Inhuman potential, then scanned his wife to see if the device differentiated between potential and Inhuman- it did but only by identifying apparent powers. Once he was done, he pointedly held onto the scanner.

Queen Medusa said “We will have to detain you until we can confirm you were not directly responsible for those deaths.” Since Coulson was confirmed human, only one member of the Royal Guard came forward to escort him away, leaving Daisy Johnson alone to face the Inhuman Royal Family.

Maximus whispered something to Gordon, who nodded and walked over to his sister, “I’m a member of the Council of Elders in Lai Shi, another Inhuman state, we chose to be annexed by Attilan. Because I’m part of the Council, they’re not gonna arrest you if you stay with me.”

“You’re gonna keep an eye on me?”

“They want to do a DNA test to make sure you’re my sister and not some other Inhuman potential with no birth records but after that, we can go to Lai Shi. Mom built Lai Shi as an Inhuman colony after she lost you. It’s where I grew up and the best part of her legacy.”

“How’d she die?”

“Oh, sorry. Mom’s not dead, Terrigenesis gifted her with agelessness through life force absorption. Losing you combined with what HYDRA did to her, it drove her mad. I’ll tell you the full story later but mom’s not dead, she’s locked up here for attempted genocide.”

“Genocide?”

“For Inhumans, exposure to Terrigen Mists awakens our Inhuman genes and grants us gifts through a process called Terrigenesis. For everyone else, it turns them to stone. Nobody knows what happens if an Inhuman is exposed to the Mists twice but we think the results would be catastrophic. Mom planned to set off a Terrigen Bomb that would cover the world in the Mists. We can visit her, I don’t know how to find your dad. Um,” Gordon realized his mistake too late, “I don’t really know what I’m doing here.” They started walking away, Gordon subtly guiding his sister.

“You said you’re an Elder,” said Daisy lamely.

“I am but you’re older. I startled mom when I was still learning control and she accidentally used her power on me, which is why I look older. Let’s get the DNA test out of the way, the sooner they confirm you’re Jiaying’s daughter, the sooner you can see Lai Shi. Technically Lai Shi is open to all Inhuman potentials. If we find an Inhuman potential who is also an orphaned child, we tend to bring them here because Attilan has more infrastructure and puberty is one of the ideal stages in life to undergo Terrigenesis, the other is infancy. It’s rare, usually something else causes us to look into a place and we find the orphan that way as opposed to just finding them because they’re Inhuman.”

“No, I get it.”

“Both of your parents have spent most of your life searching for you, I think mom founded Lai Shi because she knew you’d inherit her Inhuman genes before she got distracted with other goals.”

“I kinda want to meet her but I don’t think I’m ready. Did mom raise you?”

“It’s complicated. Yes and no, I wasn’t raised knowing who my parents were the way that most people do. I knew that I was born in Lai Shi but that’s pretty weird so it meant I knew my parents were one of the few people in Lai Shi who lived there full time, I knew my parents but I didn’t always know they were my parents.”

“You were raised by the community.”

“Exactly. My father prepared Inhuman potentials and our mother helped them through the transition. I’m not much younger than you, just to be clear. It wasn’t until mom started having me take people away because their gifts were dangerous to the community that I realized she also judged the results. Still, I had to have it spelled out to me that people were dying for having bad gifts. Bahrain should’ve made that obvious.”

“Bahrain? I’ve heard about it but nobody wants to talk about it.”

“We didn’t know that there was such a thing as ideal ages, not really. When Mom encouraged a man named Evan Johnston to get with a woman named Eva Belyakov, I saw it as matchmaking. It’s recently come to my attention that mom promised Evan he would be selected for Terrigenesis if he had a child with Eva, to continue our species. I don’t know if I was born under similar circumstances, if mom wanted to see what kind of Terrigenesis I’d have as the child of two Inhumans. Evan agreed, or at least he did father a child with Eva. The child’s name is Katya, she was exposed to the Mists at a bad age. Her powers are psychic but she’s not a telepath. It’s complicated. Katya can absorb people’s pain through physical touch and then control them but she wasn’t adequately prepared and Eva was actually trying to keep mom from exposing her so young. Bahrain happened because Katya couldn’t control her gifts. Melinda May had to kill Katya to save everyone she controlled. With the past six years, a boy named Adam Roderick was experimented on and lost his mind while gaining a form of reality bending. He restored Eva and Katya, I’m not sure how he knew about them or why he chose them but he restored them to life as part of a plan to make himself a God, again I don’t understand. That’s how they wound up here. Eva’s a part of the Royal Guard and while Katya may never be able to touch someone without something between them, like gloves, she’s learning control. To be honest, I don’t know what mom was planning when she had me take her to Bahrain but we were there when May was forced to kill a child. I may be blind but even I can tell it broke her. Daisy?” Gordon could hear her breathing and from the sounds of it, she was crying. He wrapped his arms around her, “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this, I’m trying not to overwhelm you believe it or not.”

“It’s fine.” Daisy asked “What’s gonna happen to Coulson?”

“I have no idea. If they determine that it was pre-Insight SHIELD who lost the scanners then they’ll probably warn him to get rid of the new ones before the Brotherhood finds out they have mutant scanners. If they determine it was New SHIELD then he’ll probably be in big trouble because those lost scanners led to the deaths of a lot of Inhuman potentials, mostly kids.”

Once she calmed down, Gordon led her to the infirmary to get blood drawn. “Why blood?” she asked after they left.

“They need to make sure you have the needed genes to survive Terrigenesis and they like to keep records of every citizen’s DNA, it’s how they track Terrigenesis results. They actually have a pretty good idea of what genes produce what gifts but it’s not an exact science yet.”

“Cool.”

After about a week, Daisy requested permission to see her mother and Gordon insisted on being present. A guard escorted them down, Jiaying tried her tricks on Daisy but she saw right through them and took the opportunity to say goodbye.

A month after finding out she was Inhuman, Daisy underwent Terrigenesis and became Quake.


	7. ATP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quicksilver attacks after a black cloud gives unsuspecting Inhuman potentials dangerously unstable powers and poisons mutants, only to realize Maximus is Dr. Bolton- a legend in the mutant community for his work saving victims of experimentation

**Artificial Terrigen Poisoning**

**Prologue** **  
** **Two years after Ariela’s death**

Maximus braced himself before calling time of death, knowing what came after each failure. The guards grabbed his son, roughly guiding him to an empty hallway where they beat Maximus down. Failure was not tolerated, neither was insubordination which kept him from asking for information on the experiments. He was coughing up blood, his vision blurred and more than a few bones broken when they stopped to threaten his son. Unable to stand even the thought of his son being on the other end of that scenario, of seeing the last remnants of the life he had with his wife torn to shreds, Maximus rushed to grab Max in his arms. They were escorted back to the lab where Maximus fell to the floor again. Max hurried to grab medical supplies, helping his father treat his injuries. There had to be another way.

Knowing he had to work unless he was dead or their captors would get to work on his son, Maximus managed to start preparing a new experiment, using his son to keep up on his works in progress. His new project: Artificial Terrigen, trying to streamline the process to enhance Inhuman potentials like his son without the risks that came with experimentation. He took several beating for failing to save test subjects before he finished the first batch of Artificial Terrigen Crystals. Rheon grabbed him and slammed him against the wall of his lab when they were finished “What do you think you’re doing? What is this?” He held a crystal in front of his captive brother-in-law’s face.

“It’s supposed to be Artificial Terrigen, I’m trying to make a better way to enhance the children.” Rheon threw him to the ground and gave the crystal a look of consideration before taking the whole batch and storming out.

The crystals worked, until they didn’t. The gifts they bestowed on Inhuman potentials were temporary and unstable, killing them sooner or later. Mutant powers were enhanced beyond reason, even those awakened by the crystals. Mutants were also contagious, they carried a sort of virus as the Artificial Terrigen ravaged their system. The luckiest of the subjects exposed to Artificial Terrigen simply suffered a painful death as their bodies turned on them. ATP, Artificial Terrigen Poisoning came to be the name. Rheon actually stepped on Maximus’ hand as an object lesson in taking on projects he wasn’t assigned.

**Prologue End**

Maximus was standing in the throne room, discussing the matter of the weaponized kids who had been sold when Quicksilver slammed him into the wall, never slowing down from his sudden arrival. “You did this!”

Crystal asked “What did he do?” while Maximus raised shaky hands, which caused Pietro to stumble back, his speed making that stumble cover half the room.

“You’re Dr. Bolton.”

“What did you eat for breakfast yesterday?”

“What?”

“Try to remember.”

When he thought about it, Pietro realized he couldn’t “What the hell?”

“ATP, Artificial Terrigen Poisoning. Please tell me you saw a doctor and changed clothes since you were exposed.”

“That’s how I knew what was happening. Why?”

“The gas would contaminate your clothes, putting everyone you ran past at risk for ATP.”

“You are Dr. Bolton, right?”

“Yes, technically. Not sure how you know that name,” he saw Pietro blur for a moment “Your powers are clearly destabilizing-” he suddenly realized the man was unconscious. Turning to his family, he said “As far as I’m aware, only mutants can get ATP indirectly.”

“You’re not going to explain what ATP is?” prompted Crystal.

“Artificial Terrigen was an attempt I made to replace the experiments by streamlining the enhancement process through Artificial Terrigen Crystals but since I didn’t know how they identified subjects, I couldn’t specify who to use it on. It acts like a virus in mutants, taking away their control and making them deathly ill. They can catch the virus from each other and contaminate objects if they don’t wash up and change after exposure, some even give off an invisible form of the gas. In Inhuman potentials, it awakens unstable gifts that ultimately kill the Inhuman exposed.”

“The black crystals you brought,” deduced Medusa “They’re Artificial Terrigen.”

“I need them to make more of the vaccine I developed for myself and Ahura. Assuming Quicksilver was telling the truth then he’s safe to move and should be placed in a cryo-chamber.”

“You have one in your lab, don’t you?”

“I have several in storage. It’s a risk, obviously, I’ve never tested the chambers on a living person but the alternative is to risk discovering he’s toxic to Inhumans as well as to mutants.”

“Right,” agreed Medusa. Directing the guards to take the intruder to Maximus’ lab, Gorgon went with the formerly mad scientist to set up the chamber in an isolated lab for quarantine purposes. As his cousin placed Pietro Maximoff inside the chamber, Maximus monitored his vitals and began the freezing process. The vaccines were high priority and Crystal acted as his hands while Maximus synthesized the first batch using a black crystal then worked to streamline the process to remove the Artificial Terrigen from the mix. The Royal Family and Royal Guard were the first to get vaccinated, the Genetic Council was not pleased by this arrangement but they fell in line, waiting to get their shots with the rest of the upper caste. Over the course of many weeks, Crystal and Maximus made vaccines for everyone in Attilan. Sharing their final formula with the X-Men in the hopes that it might work on mutants, they shifted towards treatment and a cure for those already afflicted. Recreating a vaccine was infinitely easier than trying to treat a mysterious virus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And of course, instead of basking in the glory of what being Dr. Bolton means, Maximus lets them focus on saving two species. I realize that calling ATP a virus might be in poor tastes in this story but in canon, Terrigen can be/is toxic to mutants. Artificial Terrigen is worse and it's early effects are similar to your run of the mill virus, which is to say flu like and then it gets progressively worse until the subject dies.


	8. Infinity War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fight against Thanos finds its way to Attilan

The Inhumans got involved in the fight against Thanos when one of his ‘children’ went after the box Maximus left on the top of his dresser, the box his wife’s people had buried long before the tribe was wiped out. The attack revealed that the box contained the Soul Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones that inspired the tribe’s six forces of nature. Maximus went down to the cell where Rheon was kept with an offer after failing to open the box prompted a tactical retreat, “You are the last of your people. Ahura and I may have been inducted but you were raised in the culture.”

“I am aware.”

“The box your ancestors buried contains an alien artifact called the Soul Stone, one of six Infinity Stones that a tyrant known as Thanos the Mad Titan seeks to use to wipe out half of the universe in a culling. I have been granted permission to release you to wield the Soul Stone, as only you can open the box, if you swear a sacred oath to fight alongside us against Thanos. We both know the binding power of your oath.” Sacred oaths were unbreakable. Whether the magic of the tribal rites made this so or members of the tribe simply never tried, Maximus would never know.

With a curt nod, Rheon recited the oath. Satisfied that his brother-in-law would not break his word, Maximus handed him the box. The box, the contents of which no one else had been able to access, opened easily for him and the Stone was absorbed into his body.

Maximus advised his brother, Black Bolt, “Have the people evacuated underground. I highly doubt Thanos will give up on the Soul Stone. I’ll tell Ahura to hide when the attack begins.” The Genetic Council had made several attempts to experiment on the first human-Inhuman hybrid they had ever encountered and the Royal Guard had proven ineffective at keeping the Crown Prince safe from them. The Council’s operations had been moved to a middle caste region with locals acting as supervisors who reported directly to the Royal Family. Still, the Council often came to the Palace and when that happened, it was best Ahura hid in the tunnels. They didn’t want to endanger the Crown Prince by forcing him into close quarters with people who have repeatedly hurt him, the tunnels would have to be safe enough while the rest of their people were underground.

On Karnak’s advice, Gorgon briefed the Royal Guard on the imminent threat, making it clear that fighting Thanos and protecting the people of Attilan were equally important tasks. Following each briefing, he directed the Guard to two nearby rooms. In one room, Karnak laid out the evacuation plan for the guards who chose to protect the people; they needed everyone safely underground in less than an hour for an unknown amount of time. In the other room, Maximus issued new armor for the guards who chose to fight and gave them a crash course in how to use it. He had created the armor when he was still trying to take the throne from Black Bolt “This armor is stronger than anything else in Attilan.” He picked up one of the standard issue blasters used by the Royal Guard and shot a random guard, who flinched but otherwise didn’t move. “Hit the wall next to you.” The wall partially caved in under his punch. Maximus threw some goo on the wall to keep it intact “That will have to be repaired later. This armor is very similar to the one worn by Wakanda’s king, the Black Panther. It absorbs almost every form of energy and enables the wearer to use that energy in different ways. For now, you’ll just need to understand that every hit boosts your strength. Be careful when removing the armor or engaging in physical contact.” He gave them a crash course on regulating their enhanced strength before telling them to leave the armor on until the fight was over.

When Thanos arrived with the Guardians and Earth’s heroes on his tail, the Inhumans were ready. Everyone on Earth’s side wore their strongest armor, Maximus had forgone his ceremonial knife and strike board but kept his tribal necklace as he suspected there was a reason that keepers of an Infinity Stone valued something so simple. He and Karnak had both theorized that the entire culture was built around the Infinity Stones or, at least, the Soul Stone. Especially once they discovered the colors from the creation myth line up with the colors of the Infinity Stones. They had confirmation that the Time Stone was the same green as the flame created by the knife to symbolize time.

While everyone else was distracted by the energy of war, Maximus snuck up on Thanos by simply walking around the battles. Even the Mad Titan was distracted by desperate ploys to steal the Gauntlet as he tried to figure out which Terran had the Soul Stone, the last Stone he needed. Waiting for an opening and ducking desperate soldiers duking it out, Maximus grabbed the Gauntlet when Thanos began to taunt one of his enemies, a blue cyborg lady called Nebula, who was apparently a turncoat.

Although the Gauntlet was still on Thanos’ hand, it responded to Maximus’ mental command. The crystal on his necklace glowing blue was the only warning anyone had before Black Bolt, Maximus, Thanos and his forces vanished. On Vormir, just as Thanos turned to the Inhuman clinging to his Gauntlet, the pest’s necklace glowed red to match the Reality Stone and the Titan’s entire gauntleted hand fell off, right into the shaky grasp of the weakling. Then, before Thanos could set things right, the crystal glowed faintly blue and the Terran hid behind his fellow failed experiment, whispering in his ear.

Maximus didn’t notice his necklace glow as he grabbed the Gauntlet, willed himself, his brother and all of their enemy forces to be safely transported to a barren world. Still gripping the Gauntlet, he was slightly disoriented by their sudden arrival yet as Thanos turned to him, his next move came to him and he willed the Gauntlet to detach itself, getting his enemy’s hand in the process. Before anyone could react, he was behind Black Bolt. He whispered to his brother, “It’s just us and them, brother. Nobody else.” With a quick nod, the king spoke. Even Maximus had trouble deciphering his brother’s words from their effect so only Black Bolt knew what he said to the Mad Titan.

Putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder, Maximus willed them back home. They arrived a few feet away from where their family had clustered together following their disappearance. Hefting the Gauntlet up in one hand, Maximus declared “This is all the remains of the Mad Titan’s crusade.” Cheers erupted from the various clusters: some were celebrating the victory itself, some the end of the battle, the aliens were celebrating the end of Thanos while the Inhumans were just happy to have their king back. Old habits die hard and they had assumed that Maximus had turned on them, abducting his brother in the process.

Maximus’ damaged hand couldn’t handle holding the heavy Gauntlet aloft for long. Lowering it, he held the Gauntlet between both hands. Just as he began to ponder what to do next, the Stones treated him to a vision of Ariela, offering him what he desired most. The real world blurred around him as he considered it, his heart already taking the bait. A million thoughts race through his genius mind at once, all the what-ifs that plagued him becoming what-could-be as he truly considered it. Then Ariela’s voice reached him, speaking her native tongue which was always music to his ears, “I am fine, Max.” She was the only person allowed to call him Max, his human alias Max Bolton came from her.

Black Bolt reached out a hand, resting it on his brother’s arm to ground him. In that moment, Maximus decided to follow his wife’s example, not his heart and do what she would have wanted him to. The world snapped back, all of the damage from the battle was undone. Looking down at the Infinity Gauntlet, he made another decision, righting a wrong before doing what had to be done. His necklace glowed blue as Vision’s body appeared directly in front of Wanda Maximoff then red as the Eye of Agamotto opened. Everyone was too distracted by the synthezoid’s appearance to notice the light show his necklace put on as the Gauntlet in his hands disintegrated to nothing, the Mind and Time Stones returned to their keepers, restoring Vision to life in the process.

Ignoring everyone, Maximus ran inside the palace. Worried for her cousin, unable to guess or imagine what he saw when the world blurred, Crystal ran after him. She followed him to his lab, where he was banging on the cryo-chamber holding Pietro Maximus in obvious frustration. Punching in the code for him, she jumped back when he quickly grabbed a syringe and injected the speedster with enough drugs to kill a normal person several times over. Instead of dying, the mutant woke up instantly and before he could get a word out, Maximus gave him directions to the front of the palace “Have Vision scan you and take Crystal with you.”

While they were in the lab, Gorgon approached Rheon, who held his hands up “I know, I know, back to my cell.”

“We could do that or you could go over there,” he pointed to where Proxima Midnight dropped the box the Soul Stone had been stored in, “Pick it up then go there,” he pointed to the Guardians clustering around the Milano. “Introduce yourself as the keeper of the Soul Stone and leave with them. Think fast, it looks like they’re ready to leave.”

“But-”

“There can’t be three Infinity Stones on one planet. You can either continue your people’s work by protecting the Soul Stone or give it up so the Guardians can find someone else to do it.” Rheon ran to grab the box and jumped aboard the Milano, explaining himself in a breathless rush.

Once Pietro’s scans proved that he had fully recovered from ATP (Artificial Terrigen Poisoning), the X-Men demanded the return of the other mutants who had been placed in the Inhumans' care. Standing in the lab, waiting for the cryo-chambers to finish defrosting, Pietro remembered something from just before he passed out, "Maximus is Dr. Bolton."

His fellow mutants were startled by his sudden declaration before the words sank in, "Max Bolton, Max _imus_ Bolt _ag_ on. I can’t believe we didn’t put it together."

"To be fair, I think most people either don’t know or forget that Black Bolt is short for anything but-"

"But Maximus couldn’t-" his sister turned to Crystal, "Maximus is Ahura’s father, isn’t he?" The princess had been charged with overseeing the mutants' release from Inhuman care while the rest of the family dealt with the other foreigners.

"Yes." It was no secret that Black Bolt and Medusa were forbidden from having kids, which meant Ahura had to be introduced as their nephew so why- "You thought Ahura was mine?"

"Um, what?"

"Black Bolt and Medusa only have one sibling each, Ahura was introduced as their nephew."

Pietro said "I guess that is more logical than thinking the kid was, uh, was an, uh-"

"Did you think Medusa cheated on Black Bolt or something?"

"Yeah, well, sorta. We thought that nephew was some kind of code, y’know, like a cover story."

"No. Ahura is Maximus' son. What does that have to do with Maximus being Dr. Bolton?"

"We already figured out why Dr. Bolton helped hurt our people, we knew his son was being used as leverage but we never really put two and two together until now. His hands were also a giveaway, a lot of mutants he treated who managed to escape told stories about him so he’s kind of a legend to our people."

"What about his hands?"

"The scars, his hands are covered in scars that don’t have an end. Mutants talk about the guy who put them above himself while in Hell on Earth."

"Interesting." As mutants defrosted, they were given a stimulant shot to wake up their nervous system. Everyone tested clean for ATP, as if they’d never been infected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy a twofer, I had this chapter written back when I first posted but I needed to get ATP knocked out for it to make any sense and after Afterlife, I wanted to introduce Quake. So, here we are, three chapters in half as many days. Enjoy and comment to let me know the hit counts accurate.


	9. Ariela

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Infinity War, a few revelations are had and Black Bolt makes a few promises

**TW: This one gets dark as we begin to address Maximus’ traumatic past.**

After dealing with the foreign heroes and releasing all of the mutants in their care, the Royal Family found Ahura waiting just inside the palace. He threw one of his father’s sketchbooks at Medusa, knowing she’d catch it. Flipping through the book and noting a number of disturbing images, the queen said “I thought he was fine.”

“Healers aren’t allowed to heal themselves and dad never breaks those rules.”

Medusa dutifully translated her husband’s signs even though she wanted to object “Black Bolt will go check on Maximus alone.”

In the chamber full of Terrigen Crystals, one of the few places the Royal Guard can’t access, Black Bolt found his brother with a stack of sketchbooks at his side, desperately etching out pictures with tears in his eyes. Sensing the familiar mental presence, Maximus asked “What do you want, brother?”

Black Bolt sat down next to Maximus, noticing how the crystals lit the room. He gently took the book, forcing his brother to look at him. When he began to sign, Maximus snatched the book back “I can’t stop,” he started sketching again for a moment “I can’t make it stop.” He set the book on top of the others and the shaking in his hands grew stronger, “I don’t want to stop, it’s the only time I get to see her. I failed her, again, brother. I failed her again.” His shaky hands form gestures that are not quite signs, or at least not sign language. “I had the power of the universe in my hands. I saw her, I could’ve brought her back. Her soul was in the Stone with all the others, I could have brought them all back. I failed again.” He bowed his head, resting his hands in his lap, “I fail at everything. I… I still love her.” He picked up the book and showed Black Bolt some of his drawings, images of what could have been. “Her people say, they said love doesn’t die or love is immortal, the actual phrase doesn’t translate. That’s why they don’t, didn’t allow people to remarry. I- they don’t have to be dead.” He took a shaky breath, “I wasn’t even married for three months. Can you imagine losing Medusa a year after you met her? Not having had all these years together? Can you imagine? I can’t see her anymore, except-” he waved to what Black Bolt thought were empty sketchbooks. “I get visions.” He laughed sadly “Anytime I use my gift, I see her. I’m losing my mind all over again. I… I’m glad that you didn’t reinstate my claim on the throne, I couldn’t do it, not anymore. I couldn’t be king, not while I still love Ariela. I couldn’t- I can’t think in terms of Attilan law while I still follow tribal rules. I wouldn’t be a good king. Ahura has a chance, if he doesn’t get too caught up in our lessons. I… I just want to be alone, brother.” He took the sketchbook back and watched his brother.

Black Bolt asked about the disturbing images in the book Ahura showed him and Medusa. “There is almost nothing I would love more than to give my own life to spare Ahura the pain we have both been subject to. I don’t think when I draw and I don’t destroy pictures because I don’t like them when I am thinking. I’ve been trying to teach Ahura to sketch out his visions so that I can show him the difference between a vision and a dream or nightmare.”

Black Bolt gestured to the stack next to Maximus “They’re empty for now. I like to sketch here, nobody but Ahura comes here and I don’t care if he looks at my sketches.” He frowned. “Ahura didn’t tell you and Medusa to keep the sketches private, I’ll bet the whole family knows by now. I gave him one of my old sketchbooks to encourage him to draw whatever he remembers of his visions. Without a written language, it’s the only way to record visions.” That explained things. “Ahura sketches in the morning, like his mother did. I keep extra sketchbooks in my room and sketch at night. When I have time, I come here. Nobody outside the family knows about this place, no need to worry about being interrupted or leaving my books.”

Black Bolt began nodding along before he realized Maximus was manipulating him,  _ If you need me, I’m here for you _ . “Thank you brother. I really need to keep sketching before the visions from the Infinity Stones fade away. I think it was really Ariela I saw.” Black Bolt left him alone, but not without resting a hand on his shoulder in a supportive gesture.

When the king rejoined the Royal Family, they mobbed him. Medusa had to push her way through, her hair carrying the book, so that she could translate. “One at a time, please.”

They quieted down and Crystal asked “What’s up with Maximus?” She was the closest to her wayward cousin, connecting with Ahura more easily than the others.

“Sketching is a cultural thing he does everyday. The book is old, he gave it to Ahura.”

“You’re not worried about him?” asked Gorgon.

Something occurred to Black Bolt before he could answer Gorgon’s question and he looked around, “Where is Ahura?”

The others looked around, Medusa said “He must’ve run off while we were focused on the book.”

Black Bolt quickly signed “I am very worried about Maximus but he will not talk with images of-” Medusa admitted “I don’t know that sign.” Black Bolt repeated the sign followed by Maximus and wife “Ariela fresh in his mind.” That was strange, usually Black Bolt and Medusa went over new signs in private. Then again, name signs were usually established by Black Bolt pointing at the other person (or dog in Lockjaw’s case) and making the sign, which was never an option for Ariela.

Medusa kept pace with her husband as he strode past their family, translating his desire to find Ahura without the others, although he did not request to be alone- possibly because Ahura didn’t know his signs like Maximus did. He found his nephew sitting in an empty stairwell with his own sketchbook. Ahura’s sketches were rougher than his father’s and colored in. “Is daddy okay?”

“He’s getting there.” Medusa translated before taking the sketchbook from her hair and handing it back to her nephew. “Did he give you this?”

“Yeah, daddy sketches a lot, says we’re supposed to do it everyday.”

“Do you know who this is?” asked Blackagar, pointing to Ariela in a family portrait style picture.

“That’s my mom. Daddy draws her a lot.”

“Are you okay?” asked Medusa, ignoring her husband’s signs to get her own question out. She clarified “I’m asking, not Black Bolt.”

“No but daddy doesn’t need to know that, it’d hurt him even more.”

“Ahura, we won’t tell anyone anything without your permission. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Ahura looked like he wanted to cry. Medusa used her hair to give her husband a light shove, hoping he’d get the hint. He did, sitting beside their nephew and pulling him close. Medusa sat down on the bottom step, careful and ladylike. Ahura began crying almost immediately and Black Bolt pushed aside how awkward he felt to comfort the boy. Thankfully gestures meant more in this situation than words, he rubbed his nephew’s back and listened to him try to explain what was wrong. It all amounted to: he was worried about his father; after everything they’ve been through, he couldn’t understand why his dad wouldn’t let him help. Medusa spoke before Black Bolt could sign and offered assurance that she and her husband/Maximus’ brother would be there for both Ahura and Maximus but they wouldn’t tell either what the other told them without permission.

Maximus was emotionally drained when he finally joined the family for dinner. Even using both sides of every page, he managed to fill about half of the books, which was a feat considering the stack was a couple feet tall. Ahura handed his dad his own book to check out “You can get more sketching done if you use a pencil and color it in afterwards.” He smirked “Or haven’t you noticed mine are all in grey and white?” Ahura chuckled. Maximus returned the book, “I have no idea what your visions mean or even if they’re really visions.”

Ahura’s crystal glowed right then and Maximus put a pencil in his hand, testing an old theory about the necklaces. Ahura pushed his seat back and started sketching, desperate to get the disturbing image out of his head. He shoved the book at his father “That had to be a vision, your illusions aren’t that good.”

“Ahura, I have never used them on you.” Maximus looked at the new images “And this is bad.”

Crystal asked “What? What did he see?”

Maximus passed the book to his brother “The Kree.” His son stuttered out a series of nos. Maximus smiled “It’s a good thing, sort of.”

“What?!”

“Forewarned is forearmed.”

Ahura’s expression turned to pure confusion “Huh?”

“The vision will give us a chance to prepare, which gives us a better chance of winning.”

“Oh,” his son seemed to calm down “I,” his eyes lit up “I actually got one out. A full vision!” His shift from confusion to excitement was almost concerning.

Maximus chuckled “I told you it was easy.”

“You were right.”

“Let’s just hope you don’t have another vision while your uncle is analyzing the first one.”

“Wait, I thought we weren’t allowed to share our sketchbook with people outside the tribe.”

“No, you’re not allowed to share much of the culture with people who have no intention of converting.”

“Oh.”

Black Bolt passed the book back, Maximus told his son “Hopefully, between the two of us, we can get a better idea of when that’s going to happen.”

“Right.”


	10. Armory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maximus and Crystal inventory the formerly mad scientist’s inventions and make plans to repurpose them for the betterment of the kingdom

Ahura thought of it first, if Maximus was being completely honest, but it occurred to the psychic Inhuman about a week after Thanos’ defeat that he should probably take stock of his old weapons. He told Gorgon to have the Royal Guard return their new armor so he could do an inventory then asked Crystal to help him on a project. She was pining for one of the foreign heroes, honestly it was hard to keep track of which one. She readily agreed but started backing up when she saw all the weapons “I need to do an official inventory and for that, I need to access my computers or, to be more precise, I need to give you access. Ahura,” the boy ran out from where he’d been hiding behind one of the robots. Maximus handed him a piece of paper that was roughly folded, “Use those codes to increase Crystal’s security clearance.”

“Okay.” Ahura ran over to a table and jumped on the chair by it. Flipping a switch on the side, the tabletop lit up, revealing it to be a computer console. Crystal stood by him while Maximus looked around the room.

“Have you been in here since you returned?”

“Only once, to grab a batch of armors for the Royal Guard.” Maximus looked over at her “I know what everything in here does, I think, but I don’t remember building most of it and this isn’t the only room full of my inventions.”

“Strange.”

“Not really. My mind was, it’s healed now. This,” he waved to the room, “was all made before my mind healed.”

Ahura said “Crystal,” she turned to him “I need you to state your name while entering your access code, that’s the one you use to get into labs.” He gave her a silent countdown before she did what he said. After the last keystroke, he jumped down and ran over to his father.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Ahura confirmed then asked Maximus “What’s that do?” Pointing to a canister of green goo.

“That’s a stabilizer, I forgot what I actually named it. Essentially it sticks to broken walls to keep the building from collapsing.”

“Awesome.” He pointed to a gun “What’s that do?”

“That is a self-charging taser, no you can’t have it.” Maximus told his son “Don’t you need to study for your lessons tomorrow?” Ahura pouted but left with a nod. Slowly, Maximus and Crystal went around the room, matching devices to blueprints and updating the royal armory’s database. Maximus saw many ways that his old weapons could be repurposed, “Theoretically, I could repurpose the hands from one of my robots and combine them with gloves from the armor I lent the Royal Guard to create exoskeletal gloves. Calibrating them to relieve the pressure from my nerves while restoring full mobility would be the trick but the gloves would enable me to do everything I used to be able to do, after a few years of development.”

“Your hands wouldn’t shake?”

“My hands shake because the nerves that control movement are damaged. The shaking isn’t what hurts, rather the pain is what causes the shaking.”

“Wow.”

“Yes, well, let’s continue. We still have at least one more room to catalogue before we can even suggest incorporating my old inventions into Attilan’s existing infrastructure.”

“Even Karnak believes your intentions are genuine.”

“I don’t imagine the reminder of what I used to do will go over well. I have created a great many things to repurpose the power of my brother’s voice, more than I have created to use against any other Inhuman.”

“Maximus, you can’t even operate this stuff anymore.”

“Actually much of it uses voice commands but I see your point.”

All told, they spent a week on the inventory alone before Crystal presented their ideas for repurposing the technology while her cousin was teaching his son to efficiently sketch his visions. Maximus was thankful that they waited until Ahura was asleep to discuss the matter. “Crystal says you don’t remember making most of your inventions,” Karnak sounded suspicious and Black Bolt looked irritated, although it was unclear who he was upset with.

The wayward prince answered the philosopher’s challenge, “I’d rather have broken hands than go back to having a broken mind, although I can’t imagine that’s all she told you.”

“No,” Medusa agreed “She told us about your ideas to repurpose your old weapons for the good of all Attilan.”

“They’re not all weapons to begin with and it will take years, possibly decades to take them all apart and reconfigure them. The projects need to be prioritized before any action can be taken.” Maximus explained “The exoskeletal gloves alone would take several months to calibrate and years more to streamline to the point where I could personally take apart my creations. Removing the power sources is a logical first step, which puts the emergency generators at the top of the list. However, some of my tech recharges itself and all of it is currently turned off. There is a lot that could be done, the order is up to you.”

Black Bolt signed and Medusa remained silent, knowing that Maximus didn’t need a translator. “I can’t make plans for the gloves until I fully understand the condition my hands are in. Based on my current understanding, gloves that take the pressure off my hands would both soothe the pain and stabilize the shaking. The initial prototypes would probably be big and limit the movement of my hands. Once the symptoms are properly addressed then I can begin simplifying the design until the exoskeletal gloves look like regular gloves.” A thought occurred to him, “Nerve damage isn’t the only condition that causes pain and shaking in the hands, anything that fixes that could be applied to diseases like arthritis. If Attilan ever chose to join the outside world, that is, since I have never heard of an Inhuman developing such a condition.”

Trying to keep up with the discussion, Gorgon asked “What would the prototypes look like?”

Maximus had to stop and think about it, “Any pressure on my hands right now makes my damaged nerves send pain signals to my brain, as I understand my condition. The gloves wouldn’t be able to rest snuggly on my hands without worsening that symptom. As I said, I can’t even begin designing them until I thoroughly understand my condition but I am fairly certain that I won’t be able to wear them at all times.”

“Right. And the generators?”

“Those will take time as well. Every power source will have to be carefully removed and securely stored while a machine is created to incorporate all of them. There are a great many projects that can still be put to use but you have to understand, we’re talking about almost everything I created before-” he didn’t know how to finish that sentence so he settled on ending it with before. Before he enacted his plans to steal the throne, before he fled or was exiled- either would work since he wasn’t pursued-, before he went and met Ariela. He bowed his head, surely the others would mistake his shame for guilt regarding the attempted coup.

Crystal bumped his shoulder to draw his attention to Black Bolt, who began his signs over again once his brother was looking at him. Maximus shakily signed back, not wanting the others to know what was asked. Black Bolt seemed to see that and asked a different question, “I’m not sure. We haven’t been tracking the skills of our people in Afterlife, only their powers. Perhaps there is an engineer among them. Even starting with the gloves and generators, I’d estimate twenty to thirty years before everything is converted.” His brow furrowed as he realized something, “Actually, if we don’t remove all of the power sources, I might be able to use some of my robots to speed up the process. There is still the matter of safe storage for power sources to consider but using robots could cut the time down by at least several years. The problem being that they would have to recharge, which means their central power source would have to remain wholly intact and that is one of the more bigger power sources. Once a command is properly entered, they’ll carry it out without any need for supervision. I’ll need Ahura to enter it, the system will more readily accept him.”

“Because he’s your son?” asked Medusa.

“Yes. Although Crystal has the highest security clearance the system will let Ahura give her, it still places my son and I higher. You need to remember that Ahura grew up in my lab, that is his natural environment where he does best. He could get the command out within the same hour of discovering I have helper bots, which would be very distracting for him.”

“If it’ll only take an hour then you can do it tomorrow, right?”

“First I have to remember where the robots and their controls are then yes, I can do it after Ahura’s lessons.”

“Sounds like a plan,” decided Medusa with Black Bolt nodding along beside her.


	11. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maximus knew he couldn’t escape Hell, not really

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though Black Bolt signs instead of speaking, I am going to treat his signs as speech for simplicity's sake

Ahura didn’t have nightmares, it was shocking but in a good way for Maximus to know that. His son had quickly latched onto the idea that what happened to them when they were living in the lab was wrong. However, not having nightmares did not mean he always slept well. Instead of terrifying dreams, Ahura sometimes had trouble achieving REM sleep. Light sleep at night led to exhaustion during the day.

Maximus had frequent nightmares in addition to his (fortunately dwindling) panic attacks. He had come to the conclusion that he was having panic attacks when Ahura was still a toddler, a condition that enabled him to practice making shaking hands do the work he needed them to before the nerve damage set in. In the wake of Thanos’ defeat, Maximus realized he had been applying the same standards he set for dealing with Ahura to his whole family. He was trying to protect them from the truth the way he did for his son.

Based on his troubling thoughts, Maximus assumed he would not be able to fall asleep right then. Grabbing a pencil, he slipped out of his room and went to the nearest entrance for the tunnels. Like father like son, they both preferred travelling invisibly through the secret passageways to walking past Royal Guards. He settled down in his usual spot and opened one of the books he left there but the visions wouldn’t come and he couldn’t draw well without them. Black Bolt found him there, the elder brother had many sleepless nights where he wandered. Before discovering the chamber was actually Maximus’ favorite hiding spot instead of Ahura’s, his wandering often led him to the Quiet Room. Maximus spoke before he could make a sound to announce his presence “The visions aren’t coming tonight, it’s been almost a week since the last one.”

Black Bolt sat down, surprised, and then, when Maximus turned to face him, he asked “What are you doing here?”

“Avoiding sleep.”

“Why?”

“It’s a cycle. The good always precedes the bad, I don’t want nightmares and I can function with very little sleep.” Black Bolt knew the last one was made true by necessity.

The whole family had been present when Maximus learned the lights that told him and his son when to sleep weren’t turned off regularly. Karnak had theorized that their overseers were testing them, which caused Maximus to tense and bite back the hiss of pain that action caused. From ‘talking’ to Medusa about it, Black Bolt knew he wasn’t the only one who caught his brother’s reaction. Testing meant something different in that situation than what Karnak had been trying to imply. Luckily, Gorgon didn’t get the hint and Karnak had to elaborate, explaining that the lights probably stayed on longer sometimes to see if Maximus was able to keep time. He wasn’t and hearing it was likely that kind of test calmed the scientist. Ahura had more trouble understanding time, how it worked and why it was important, than he did accepting that what happened to him and his father was wrong. Karnak theorized it was easier for Ahura to accept the latter because he saw proof everyday in how they were treated now whereas time was still more abstract and children often struggled with abstract. Eventually, though, he accepted that there was no reason for it but the concept of time was important nonetheless. He was excited to learn he would be undergoing Terrigenesis at twelve instead of waiting until he was fifteen, the age he would undergo coming-of-age rituals in his mother’s tribe. That was what sold him on the idea of time being important, realizing both sides of his family valued it.

“You should still sleep,” said Black Bolt.

“I think if I tried any harder, I’d only give myself another panic attack.” Maximus said “I know that the past is past but that doesn’t help me dodge nightmares.”

“What about the past?”

“The facility, usually, but other things as well, distorted memories or-” he gestured vaguely then waved to himself “Madness.” Crystal had theorized that while Maximus didn’t forget anything, as far as they could tell, his memories were not clouded by his thoughts from the time. He remembered everything he did, every crime against the family he committed, every action taken but he couldn’t remember why or what he was thinking. He had looked around his old lab in utter confusion the first time he returned there, remembering what he had done there but completely baffled by his own memories.

“Madness?” Black Bolt had no idea how to phrase his next question but Maximus needed him to keep going so he could keep going, to avoid the brooding and depression, to process instead of stew.

Maximus swallowed hard before telling him about his encounter with a mutant telepath named Emma Frost- if you could call being strapped to a chair, electrocuted and told to deal with a psychic threat as an encounter. He told his brother how their combined power had caused the deaths of many, how he had beaten her with raw power and madness. Black Bolt was a man of his word, if he made a promise then he kept it. He never told Medusa what he and his brother talked about because he had promised to keep what was said between them. Trusting that, Maximus told Black Bolt how that felt. “I don’t know if madness is simply a part of my gift, I also don’t know if Frost ever recovered.” He continued on with the story, explaining what happened after the guards’ cause of death was confirmed. He had to stop after telling his brother how Ahura was yanked out of reach before they were marched to a cell block. His punishments were often used as object lessons, a tactic which backfired because it made the others realize that he was not a willing participant in their torment. He had to collect himself, knowing full well how recounting punishments affected them almost equally, no matter how quickly Black Bolt tried to reign in his temper to minimize the effect on his brother. The punishment for paid staff dying because of him was brutal and even as he told his brother how little he let it show, he could practically hear Blackagar gritting his teeth. Maximus bowed his head as he finished the story, adding with a hollow chuckle “Your weakness was always obvious, brother. Make you feel helpless and you start to forget yourself. Physical pain only strengthens your resolve, I figured that out when we were children. Remember how I’d tease you about Medusa, I don’t have to remember my thoughts at the time to know why I did that.”

Had he said something to that effect years ago, it would have been intended to cause pain but now, Black Bolt could see his brother was simply informing him of a fact. Still, he had to calm down to sign legibly. As he raised his hands, Maximus covered them with one of his own. The contact lasted only a second but knowing what any pressure on his hands did, Blackagar was quite sure that his brother just put himself through a momentary Hell to silence him. “I think I might manage sleep now, thank you.” He took his pencil with him but left the sketchbooks alone with his brother.

Blackagar couldn’t resist the temptation. He looked through one and found it full of portraits and snapshots of a family life Maximus never had. He was surprised when one of the scenes showed the whole Royal Family with Ariela and Rheon, the latter was dressed in Royal Guard attire. Apparently, Maximus had visions of what could have been if the two sides of his family were merged. Black Bolt was once again hit with the realization that Maximus chose to give up his one chance to have it all- he had the power of the universe in his hands and he let it slip through his fingers. Stealing one of the books, an empty one although he was quite sure Maximus would notice either way, Black Bolt returned to his quarters and put it on his desk. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it yet, he would have gotten started if he had a plan, but somehow, taking the book felt right.

Medusa noticed the sketchbook but left it alone, Black Bolt would tell her what he was doing unless he had sworn otherwise. Ahura was more comfortable around Black Bolt than almost anyone in the family except his father and Medusa was still trying to piece together why. The boy often asked to be alone with his uncle and Medusa had yet to hear an explanation. Her hair always gave away her emotional state and having a psychic for a brother-in-law could be a real pain. The next time it happened, Maximus told her “Ahura likes quiet people.”

“What?”

“Ahura likes quiet people, it’s the reason he can sit and draw for hours while Karnak meditates but can’t handle five minutes alone with Gorgon. Loud people stress him out, quiet people are comforting.” Maximus’ smile was clearly a tad forced as he said “You can’t get any quieter than someone who cannot make a sound.” That made perfect sense, in a way. Medusa nodded to her brother-in-law before the man went on his way.


	12. F4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maximus awakens Franklin Richards from a coma caused by his use of the Reality Stone

Maximus was working on a gel to reduce the pressure on his hands for the gloves, using robots as assistants, when Crystal came in “Your powers still work, right?”

Maximus gave the robots instructions before turning to his cousin, “Yes. Why?”

“Franklin Richards, he went into a coma that nobody can explain and Ahura mentioned you’ve been able to wake people up from comas when he overheard me talking to Johnny, Franklin’s uncle.”

“When did the coma start?”

“Uh, Johnny said they came back from fighting Thanos to find Franklin in a coma, they checked the security footage and it looks like he just collapsed.”

“Ah, Johnny Storm. Who are Franklin’s parents?”

“Reed Richards and Sue Storm, why?”

“It’s possible that Franklin is Enhanced, given the fact that both of his parents are. Perhaps his mutation makes him more sensitive to the effects of the Infinity Stones. How close was he to the hospitalized mutants?”

“I don’t know. Can you help him or not?”

“I make no guarantees.” Maximus turned back to his work, “Technically, I need Black Bolt’s permission to leave Attilan so we’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Franklin is stable, correct?”

“Yeah.” Crystal forgot that Maximus wasn’t even allowed outside the palace without permission, for his own safety since many people didn’t like how the Royal Family had just forgiven Maximus. “What are you working on?” Crystal had supported Maximus when he suggested keeping the robots online indefinitely, he was able to complete projects as he went instead of dismantling everything and starting over as he had originally planned.

“A gel for my hands to reduce the pressure from the gloves, I couldn’t even get the first prototype all the way on because they were too tight. I’ll use gloves several sizes too big and apply the gel to minimize the pressure.”

“Oh,” Crystal had gotten a much deeper understanding of science from working with Maximus before Ahura turned the robots back on. Gorgon kept an eye on the inventory after Black Bolt decided that some of the weapons could still be useful, although Maximus had final say on what could be put into use and what was too much of a risk given their original intended purpose.

At dinner, Crystal walked them through the conversation with Johnny, including his idea of taking Franklin and Ahura to Coney Island if Maximus could wake his nephew up. Black Bolt turned to his brother “I have been known to wake people from comas, even ones that they should have stayed in to heal, and I suspect the Infinity Stones caused this mysterious one. I told Crystal we could do it tomorrow but-”

Black Bolt shook his head fondly before signing his permission. Medusa asked her brother-in-law “What do you think caused the coma?”

“The Infinity Stones.” Maximus explained “Both of Franklin’s parents have mutated DNA, it is entirely possible that Franklin is himself a mutant, although not of the X-gene variety. His mutation might make him more sensitive to the power of the Stones and I did enact a global change when I used the Reality Stone to cure ATP, which means he could have been close enough to be affected.”

“So you think he’s a reality bender or something?”

“I have no idea but the timing is suspicious.”

The next day, Ahura was very upset to discover he still had to attend lessons and behave for his tutors instead of going to New York with his father. Lockjaw took Maximus and Crystal directly into the Fantastic Four’s living room where Johnny ran to meet them, “Come on guys, this way.”

They followed him to where the rest of the Four were standing around an unconscious boy. Maximus walked right up to the boy’s bedside, in front of his mother, and focused while the parents argued with Johnny about the odds of this working. Their bickering stopped when the Thing pointed out their son was waking up. Maximus turned to Crystal, “Remember your promise,” then to Johnny, “Remember our deal,” and lastly Reed “Your son’s a reality bender,” before quickly heading back to Lockjaw.

Crystal told Johnny “I’ll be back in a few hours with Ahura.” Then she hurried to join her cousin and leave before Reed could start questioning what Maximus had done. Using that same opening, Sue focused her husband’s attention on her brother’s mysterious deal.

Johnny hurriedly explained “Maximus’ son Ahura is the only kid in the Royal Family and because he’s in the Royal Family, he has tutors. He almost never even sees another kid so he’s got no friends. I told Crystal that if Maximus wakes Franklin up then I’d take her and the kids to Coney Island. I didn’t say anything about you guys going or not going.”

“You can take Franklin to Coney Island with Crystal,” Sue said, “But you both better come back in one piece.”

“You got it, sis.”

After his lessons, Ahura ran to find his father. Maximus was waiting in a courtyard with Lockjaw and Crystal, he smiled at his son as Ahura came barreling in “Are you ready to go to New York?” The young prince nodded like a bobblehead and his father patted his head before leaving the three of them alone.

Crystal said “Put a hand on Lockjaw and we’ll go.” Ahura almost crashed into the dog in his excitement, earning a happy woof before they were transported to the Baxter Building. Lockjaw left as soon as they removed their hands, returning to Attilan until they needed a pick up. After going over ground rules with Sue, who was understandably protective of her son, Crystal told her young cousin “Ahura is kind of a strange name outside Attilan so we’re gonna use your other name, alright Max?”

“Okay.”

Johnny helped him into a Fantastic Four themed sweatshirt before taking them down to the garage. While Ahura’s clothes were normal for someone of his rank in Attilan, they stood out in New York. Since they were planning to stay until late so that he could see the lights on the rides, the sweatshirt worked to help Max blend in. Johnny told Crystal, “Sue already gave me the ground rules talk and insisted I take her car for safety.” He led the trio over to a sedan and got the kids settled in the back while Crystal climbed in the passenger seat. “Alright, this is gonna be kind of a long drive.”

Max asked “How long is kinda long?”

“An hour.”

The young prince tilted his head “That’s not long.”

“New York traffic will make it feel like a long time.”

“Oh.”

“Luckily, I already got our tickets so we can skip the line.”

After the drive, which did feel longer with traffic, Johnny showed the ticketer something on his phone and they were all given wristbands. Taking two little kids to Coney Island did not a fun date make. For one thing, they couldn’t really go on the big roller coasters because they were responsible for Max and Franklin. When Max saw a cotton candy stand, he started tugging on Johnny’s arm to get some. “Alright, alright.” Johnny laughed “Franklin, want some cotton candy?” His nephew’s eyes lit up and they got in line. He wound up buying two, one for the kids and one to split with Crystal. “I know you two can share and you can’t take food on rides.”

“Right,” said Franklin, taking a bite. Max took his cues from the New Yorkers, taking a bite himself.

After taking her first bite, Crystal told Johnny “Good call having the kids share, I’m not sure how much Max will actually eat.” At his look, she explained “I’m surprised he took food from you.” That simple statement prompted Johnny to remember who Max was.

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah. Plus it’s sweet,” Crystal looked at the two boys who were looking around, trying to decide where to go next, “Although he doesn’t seem to mind that.” Maybe taking kids to an amusement park wasn’t such a bad idea for a date.

They played a few games before Max tried to weasel a slurpee out of Johnny, “I’ll make you a deal. Instead of having a slurpee now, you can have an ice cream cone after dinner.” Johnny led them to Flywheel Eats, asking Crystal “Is this alright?”

“Yeah. Max will probably eat more junk food today than he will in the next month.” She asked Franklin “What do you think we should get?”

“Pizza.”

Johnny shrugged “Two pizza and two burger combos, all with lemonades.” They sat down to eat the food, Franklin introducing Max to the wonders of pizza.

Crystal said “This is a lot of food.”

“Don’t worry about it, I have plenty of money and a big appetite, if the kids don’t finish their meals.” He told Max “We’ll get ice cream when we leave, don’t worry about saving room.”

The boy nodded, having almost forgotten about ice cream after tasting pizza. They spent most of the day at Coney Island, playing games, riding rides and trying different foods. Both Crystal and Max were introduced to much amusement park cuisine before the sunset. Johnny had the brilliant idea when the sun began to set for them to get in line for the boat ride but unfortunately, a lot of attractions, especially kiddie rides, started closing around that time. As the sun went down, rides started lighting up. Both Max and Franklin looked around at the dancing lights, they were getting tired after walking around almost all day but this was so worth it. Johnny pulled out his phone and snuck a picture, he’d snapped a few throughout the day, before text Sue that they were going to leave soon and promising to text her when they got in the car. He sent her the photos along with the message, thinking that might cool his sister’s anger at keeping her son out so late. “We should start heading towards the exit, see if the ice cream shop is open. If it’s not, we’ll just have to go somewhere else.” Coney Cones was open and they managed to get in quickly. Reading the menu, he told Crystal “We’ll do waffle cones, the kids can each get two scoops but we’ll have to eat outside.” Then he focused on Franklin while she focused on Max and they got their orders together.

When she rang Johnny up, the teller said “Your kids are so cute.”

“They’re not mine, actually. Franklin’s my nephew but he’s not my kid.”

Tactfully deciding to drop it, the teller only hummed in response. Once they had their cones, Johnny hustled Crystal and the kids out of the shop.

“What’s wrong?” asked Crystal.

“Nothing, tell you later.” Surprisingly, everyone had been nice and not prejudiced about the couple with two kids. Johnny wasn’t sure he wanted kids and logically, he understood that a couple with kids is presumed to be a couple of parents with their kids but he just didn’t like it. They made their way to the parking lot and Crystal held his cone while Johnny lifted the kids onto the trunk. “We should get going as soon as we finish our ice cream.” The kids had no objections, too busy enjoying their regular sized cones.

Only then did Johnny wonder if giving two kids their age so much sugar was a good idea. Maybe he shouldn’t have waited so long to get ice cream. Luckily, the kids’ exhaustion beat their sugar high while Johnny was driving them home. He gave Crystal his phone and pointed at the boys with a grin. She took a picture and sent it to Sue then went through the pictures from earlier in the day. Sue called in response to the text and Crystal answered “I thought you were going to text me when you got to the car.”

“Johnny’s driving right now, he gave me his phone to send that picture.”

“Crystal.”

“We went to the car after getting ice cream and Johnny wasn’t sure if the sugar would make them hyper again so we were kinda trying to beat the sugar high. Sorry.”

“How was the park?”

“It was fun. Max and I got to try a lot of different foods we don’t have in Attilan.”

“Hence the sugar high,” inferred Sue. “Glad you had fun. Where are you right now?”

After asking Johnny, she repeated his answer verbatim. “It took like an hour, hour and a half to get there.”

“I’ll see you when you get here. Thanks for the pictures.”

“No problem. Bye.”

“Was she mad?” asked Johnny.

“Only that you didn’t text her when we were getting in the car like you apparently promised.”

“I forgot.”

“She seemed fine once I explained.” Sue’s call reminded Crystal that she needed to call home if Lockjaw was going to be ready to take her home. She called Maximus to let him know they were on their way back, “We stayed to see the rides light up. Ahura’s already asleep, which is why I need you to send Lockjaw ahead in like twenty minutes.”

When they arrived at the Baxter, they moved in sync. Quietly closing their doors and getting the kids from the backseat without waking them, the elevator ride was thankfully silent. In the Four’s apartment, Johnny took Franklin to bed while Crystal went to the living room to find Lockjaw waiting. She carefully put one hand on her dog and he took them home. Maximus tried to take Ahura from her but she shook her head, “Your hands. Just lead the way.” As most of the family understood: any pressure on his hands added to the already agonizing pain, which could cause the shaking to worsen and thus made lab work impossible. Crystal set Ahura in his bed and left Maximus to do the rest, the boy was still wearing the Fantastic Four sweatshirt overtop his normal clothes with his crystal necklace hidden between the two layers. Maximus simply tucked him in and went to his own room.

The next morning, Ahura would not stop talking about Coney Island, Maximus had to repeatedly remind him of every little thing the boy needed to do. Finally, when he was going to be late to his lessons, Maximus threatened to keep him in Attilan, away from Johnny and Franklin, for a month. That made his son focus and hurry to his lessons, although Maximus suspected it would take Ahura less than a full day of lessons to realize his threat was a simple statement of fact, there would be no more trips for at least a month regardless of what Ahura did.

While Crystal and Ahura were in New York, Maximus was given permission to visit the Baxter at any time to speak with Reed Richards. Requiring the former wayward prince to get permission to leave had actually been Maximus’ idea, that way they could always honestly say they knew exactly where he was if someone tried to report his activities. Already a few attempted frame jobs were uncovered using this rule. The day after his son’s adventure at Luna Park, Maximus took Lockjaw to the Baxter, sending the dog away with a smile and a careful pet on the head. He was immediately set upon by Reed “Maximus, I’m glad you came.”

“You asked me to come and Black Bolt gave me another day pass.”

“Day pass?”

“For security reasons, I can’t leave the palace without my brother’s permission.” Maximus explained “I made some enemies after leaving Attilan the first time, let’s leave it at that.”

“Of course. Just to be clear, your brother didn’t make you come, right?”

“Correct.”

“You said Franklin’s a reality bender, could you explain that?”

“It’s not rocket science, your son has the power to warp reality. I believe his coma was a reaction to my use of the Reality Stone in curing a mutant disease called ATP.” Maximus shrugged “If that’s all you wanted to know, you could’ve asked Crystal to call when she brought my son over last night.” Reed invited Maximus to join him in his lab while they discussed what Maximus saw in Franklin’s mind, making the most of the trip. A couple of hours before dinnertime, just before Ahura usually got out of lessons, Maximus excused himself and returned to Attilan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a fluffy chapter, although I feel I must let everyone know that I have never been to Coney Island and apologize if I got anything wrong. Trying to do research in COVID times for a story lacking a pandemic of its own isn't the easiest thing in the world


End file.
